B 3 im mE 'li;: /■ ■•*. s^ •• ^ ^Bm ^ipaASV l[}nwt$ita a| ^diJ>it«i^^^ No Division Ranoe J/ f -X I 87/ PRESENTED TO TIE UNIVERSITY OF CAMPORNIA, BY EDMOND L. GOOLD. ^ ^ BB?rT^!CJ'=r3 \-# •r^-^^ MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. BY ^J.^ Li AECHIBALD ALISON, P. E. S. ArTHOR OF "history OF EUROPE DURING THfi FRENCH REVOLUTION Ecprintcli from tl)c (gngUsl) CDrigiuals, WITH THE AUTHOR'S CORRECTIONS FOR THIS EDITION :NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & CO., 90, 92 & 94 GRAND STREET. 1868. PREFACE. A WISH having been expressed by the publishers of this work to have a collection of my Miscellaneous Essays, published at different times and in different periodical works in Great Britain, made for reprints in America, and selected and arranged by myself, I have willingly assented to so flattering a proposal. I have endeavoured in making the selection to choose such as discuss subjects possessing, as far as possible, a general and durable interest; and to admi*- those only, relating to matters of social contest or national policy in Great Britain, which are likely, from the importance of the questions involved in them, to excite some interest as contemporary compositions among future generations of men. And I should be ungrateful if, in making my first appear- ance before the American public, and in a work hitherto published in a col- lected form only in this country, I did not make my warmest acknowledgments for the liberal spirit in which they have received my writings, and the indul- gence they have manifested towards their imperfections; and express at the same time the pride which I feel, as an English author, at the vast and boundless field for British literary exertion which is afforded by the extension of the Anglo-Saxon race on the other side of the Atlantic. If there is any wish I entertain more cordially than another, it is that this strong though unseen mental bond may unite the British family in every part of the world, and cause them all to feel as brothers, even when the time arrives, as arrive it will, that they have obtained the dominion of half the globe. A. ALISON Possel House, Glasgow, Sept. 1, 1844. CONTENTS. CHATEAUBRIAND 7 NAPOLEON . .....27 BOSSUET 42 POLAND 52 MADAME DE STAEL . o 64 NATIONAL MONUMENTS 73 MARSHAL NEY ........... 84 ROBERT BRUCE 94 PARIS IN 1814 ........... 100 THE LOUVRE IN 1814 109 TYROL 117 FRANCE IN 1S33 125 ITALY 154 SCOTT, CAMPBELL, AND BYRON .160 l/ayrmr^rLC .... -_ ^^j THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION 173 MICHELET'S FRANCE 184 MILITARY TREASON AND CmC SOLDIERS . , 195 ARNOLD'S ROME 203 BURABEAU 212 BULAVER'S ATHENS . . , .228 THE REIGN OF TERROR 241 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830 253 THE FALL-OF TURKEY 266 THE SPANISH REVOLUTION OF 1820 279 PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS 239 EARAMSIN'S RUSSIA 299 EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830 309 DESERTION OF PORTUGAL 321 CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN ......... 325 WELLINGTON .... 346 THE AFFGHANISTAUN EXPEDITION 348 THE FUTURE .... S57 GUIZOT . . . . . .367 HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO 380 5 ALISON'S ESSAYS. CHATEAUBEIAND. [Blackwood's Magaziue, March, 1832.] It is one of the worst effects of the vehe- mence of faction, which has recently agitated the nation, that it tends to withdraw the atten- tion altogether from works of permanent lite- rary merit, and by presenting nothing to the mind but a constant succession of party dis- cussions, both to disqualify it for enjoying the sober pleasure of rational information, and render the great works which are calculated to delight and improve the species known only to a limited class of readers. The conceit and prejudice of a large portion of the public, in- crease just in proportion to the diminution of their real information. By incessantly studying journals where the advantage of the spread of knowledge is sedulously inculcated, they imagine that they have attained that know- ledge, because they have read these journals, and by constantly abusing those whom they stigmatize as offering the light of truth, they come to forget that none oppose it so effectually as those who substitute for its steady ray the lurid flame of democratic flattery. It is, therefore, with sincere and heartfelt joy, that we turn from the turbid and impassioned stream of political discussion, to the pure foun- tains of literary genius ; from the vehemence of party strife to the calmness of philosophic investigation ; from works of ephemeral cele- brity to the productions of immortal genius. When we consider the vast number of these which have issued from the European press during the last fifteen years, and the small extent to which they are as yet known to the British public, we are struck with astonish- ment ; and confirmed in the opinion, that those who are loudest in praise of the spread of in- formation, are not unfrequently those who possess least of it for any useful purpose. It has long been a settled opinion in France, that the seams of English literature are wrought out ; that while we imagine we are advancing, we are in fact only moving round in a circle, and that it is in vain to expect any thing new on human affairs from a writer imder the English constitution. This they ascribe to the want of the boukverscmcnt of ideas, and the ex- trication of original thought, which a revolu- tion produces ; and they coolly calculate on the catastrophe which is to overtui-n the English government, as likely to open new veins of thought among its inhabitants, and pour new streams of eloquence into its writers. Without acquiescing in the justice of this observation in all its parts, and strenuously asserting for the age of Scott and Byron "a decided superiority over any other in British history since the days of Shakspeare and Mil- ton, at least in poetry and romance, we must admit that the observation, in many depart- ments of literature, is but too well founded. No one will accuse us of undue partiality for the French Revolution, a convulsion whose principles we have so long and so vigorously opposed, and whose horrors we have en- deavoured, sedulously, though inadequately, to impress upon our readers. It is therefore with a firm conviction of impartiality, and a consciousness of yielding only to the tone of truth, that we are obliged to confess, that in historical and political compositions the French of our age are greatly superior to the writers of this country. We are not insensible to the merits of our modern English historians. We fully appreciate the learned research of Turner, the acute and valuable narrative of Lingard, the elegant language and antiquarian industry of Tytler, the vigour and originality of M'Crie, and the philosophic wisdom of Mackintosh. But still we feel the justice of the French observation, that there is something " English" in all their ideas. Their thoughts seem formed on the even tenor of political events prior to 1789: and in reading their works we can hardly persuade ourselves that they have been ushered into the world since the French Revolution advanced a thousand years the materials of political investigation. Chateaubriand is universally allowed by the French, of all parties, to be their first writer. His merits, however, are but little understood in this country. He is known as once a minis- ter of Louis XVIII., and ambassador of that monarch in London, as the writer of many celebrated political pamphlets, and the victim, since the Revolution of 1830, c f his noble and ill-requited devotion to that unfortunate family. Few are aware that he is, without one single exception, the most eloquent writer of the pre- sent age ; that independent of politics, he has produced many M^orks on morals, religion, and history, destined for lasting endurance; that his writings combine the strongest love of rational freedom, Avith the warmest inspiration of Christian devotion ; tliat he is, as it were, the link between the feudal and the revolu- 7 8 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Ucnary ages; retaining from the former its generous and elevated feeling, and inhaling from the latter its acute and fearless investi- gation. The last pilgrim, with devout feelings, to the holy sepulchre, he was the first supporter of constitutional freedom in France ; discard- ing thus from former times their bigoted fury, and from modern, their infidel spirit; blending all that was noble in the ardour of the Crusades, with all that is generous in the enthusiasm of freedom. It is the glory of the Conservative Party throughout the Avorld, and by this party we mean all who are desirous in every country to uphold the religion, the institutions, and the liberties of their fathers, that the two greatest writers of the age have devoted their talents to the support of their principles. Sir Walter Scott and Chateaubriand are beyond all ques- tion, and by the consent of both nations, at the head of the literature of France and England since the Revolution; and they will both leave names at which the latest posterity will feel proud, when the multitudes who have sought to rival them on the revolutionary side are buried in the waves of forgotten time. It is no small triumph to the cause of order in these trying days, that these mighty spirits, destined to instruct and bless mankind through every succeeding age, should have proved so true to the principles of virtue ; and the patriot may well rejoice that generations yet unboi'n, while they approach their immortal shrines, or share in the enjoyments derived from the legacies they have bequeathed to mankind, will inhale only a holy spirit, and derive from the pleasures of imagination nothing but ad- ditional inducements to the performance of duty. Both these great men are now under an eclipse, too likely, in one at least, to terminate in earthly extinction. The first lies on the bed, if not of material, at least, it is to be feared, of intellectual death ; and the second, arrested by the military despotism which he so long strove to avert from his country, has lately awaited in the solitude of a prison the fate destined for him by revolutionary violence.* " Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage ; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage." It is in such moments of gloom and depres- sion, when the fortune of the world seems most adverse, when the ties of mortality are about to be dissolved, or the career of virtue is on the point of being terminated, that the immortal superiority of genius and virtue most strongly appear. i[n vain was the Scottish bard ex- tended on the bed of sickness, or the French patriot confined to the gloom of a dungeon ; their works remain to perpetuate their lasting sway over the minds of men ; and while their mortal frames are sinking beneath the suffer- ings of the world, their immortal souls rise into the region of spirits, to witness a triumph more glorious, an ascendency more enduring, • Sir Walter Scott, at this period, was on his deathbed, >nd Chateaubriand imprisoned by order of Louis Philippe. than ever attended the arms of Csesar or Alex* ander. Though pursuing the same pure and en- nobling career ; though gifted with the same ardent imagination, and steeped in the same fountains of ancient lore, no two writers were ever more different than Chateaubriand and Sir Walter Scott. The great characteristic of the French author, is the impassioned and enthusiastic turn of his mind. Master of im- mense information, thoroughly imbued at once with the learning of classical and catholic times ; gifted with a retentive memory, a poeti- cal fancy, and a painter's eye, he brings to bear upon every subject the force of erudition, the images of poetry, the charm of varied scenery, and the eloquence of impassioned feeling. Hence his writings display a reach and variety of imagery, a depth of light and shadow, a vigour of thought, and an extent of illustration, to which there is nothing comparable in any other writer, ancient or modern, with whom we are acquainted. All that he has seen, or read, or heard, seem present to his mind, what- ever he does, or wherever he is. He illustrates the genius of Christianity by the beauties of classical learning, inhales the spirit of ancient prophecy on the shores of the Jordan, dreams on the banks of the Eurotas of the solitude and gloom of the American forests; visits the Holy Sepulchre with a mind alternately de- voted to the devotion of a pilgrim, the curiosity of an antiquary, and the enthusiasm of a crusa- der, and combines, in his romances, with the tender feelings of chiv^alrous love, the heroisift of Roman virtue, and the sublimity of Chris- tian martyrdom. His writings are less a faithful portrait of any particular age or coun- try, than an assemblage of all that is grand, and generous, and elevated in human nature. He drinks deep of inspiration at all the foun- tains where it has ever been poured forth to mankind, and delights us less by the accuracy of any particular picture, than the traits of genius which he has combined from eveiy quarter where its footsteps have trod. His style seems formed on the lofty strains of Isaiah, or the beautiful images of the Book of Job, more than all the classical or modern literature with which his mind is so amply stored. He is admitted by all Frenchmen, of whatever party, to be the most perfect living master of their language, and to have gained for it beauties unknown to the age of Bossuel and Fenelon. Less polished in his periods, less sonorous in his diction, less melodious in his rhythm, than these illustrious writers, he is incomparably more varied, rapid, and en- ergetic; his ideas flow in quicker succession, his words follow in more striking antithesis ; the past, the present, and the future rise up at once before us; and we see how strongly the stream of genius, instead of gliding doAvn the smooth current of ordinary life, has been broken and agitated by the cataract of revolution. With far less classical learning, fewer images derived from travelling, inferior in- formation on many historical subjects, and a mind of a less impassioned and energetic cast, our own Sir Walter is far more deeply read m that book which is ever the same — the human CHATEAUBRIAND. heart. This is his unequalled excellence — there he stands, since the daj-s of Shakspeare, without a rival. It is to this cause that his astonishing success has been owing. We feel in his characters that it is not romance, but real life which is represented. Every word that is said, especially in the Scotch novels, is nature itself. Homer, Cervantes, Shakspeare, and Scott, alone have penetrated to the deep substratum of character, which, however dis- guised by the varieties of climate and govern- ment, is at bottom everywhere the same; and thence they have found a responsive echo in every human heart. Ever}' man who reads these admirable works, from the North Cape to Cape Horn, feels that what the characters they contain are made to say, is just what would have occurred to themselves, or what they have heard said by others as long as they lived. Nor is it only in the delineation of character, and the knowledge of human p.ature, that the Scottish Novelist, like his great pre- decessors, is but for them without a rival. Powerful in the pathetic, admirable in dialogue, unmatched in description, his writings capti- vate the mind as much by the varied excel- lencies which they exhibit, as the powerful interest which they maintain. He has carried romance out of the region of imagination and sensibility into the walks of actual hie. We feel interested in his characters, not because they are ideal beings with whom we have be- come acquainted for the first time when we began the hook, but because they are the very persons we have lived with from our infancy. His descriptions of scenery are not luxuriant and glowing pictures of imaginary beauty, like those of Mrs. Radcliffe, having no resemblance to actual nature, but faithful and graphic por- traits of real scenes, drawn with the eye of a poet, but the fidelity of a consummate draughts- man. He has combined historical accuracy and romantic adventure with the interest of tragic events ; we live with the heroes, and princes, and paladins of former times, as with our own contemporaries; and acquire from the splendid colouring of his pencil such a vivid conception of the manners and pomp of the feudal ages, that we confound them, in our recollections, with the scenes which we our- selves have witnessed. The splendour of their tournaments, the magnificence of their dres.s, the glancing of their arms ; their haughty manners, daring courage, and knightly cour- tesy ; the shock of their battlesteeds, the splin- tering of their lances, the conflagration of their castles, are brought before our eyes in such vivid colours, that we are at once transported to the age of Richard and Saladin, of Bruce and Marmion, of Charles the Bold and Philip Augustus. Disdaining to flatter the passions, or pander to the ambition of the populace, he Iwis done more than any man alive to elevate their character; to fill their minds with the noble sentiments which dignify alike the cot- tage and the palace; to exhibit the triumph of virtue in the humblest stations over all that the world calls groat; and without ever in- dulging a sentiment which might turn thern from the scenes of their real usefulness, bring home to every mind the " might that slumbers in a peasant's arm." Above all, he has uni- formly, in all his varied and extensive produC' tioHs, shown himself true to the cause of virtue Amidst all the innumerable combinations of character, event, and dialogue, which he has formed, he has ever proved faithful to the polar star of duty; and alone, perhaps, of the great romance-writers of the world, has not left a line which on his death-bed he would wish recalled. Of such men France and England may well be proud; shining, as they already do, through the clouds and the passions of a fleeting ex- istence, they are destined soon to illuminate the world with a purer lustre, and ascend to that elevated station in the higher heavens where the fixed stars shed a splendid and im- perishable light. The writers whom party has elevated — the genius which vice has seduced, are destined to decline with the interests to which they were devoted, or the passions by which they were misled. The rise of new poli- tical struggles will consign to oblivion the vast talent which was engulfed in its conten- tion ; the accession of a more virtuous age bury in the dust the fancy which was enlisted in the cause of corruption ; while these illus- trious men, whose writings have struck root in the inmost recesses of the human heart, and been Avatered by the streams of imperish- able feeling, will for ever continue to elevate and bless a grateful world. To form a just conception of the importance of Chateaubriand's Genius of Christianit}', we must recollect the period when it was pub- lished, the character of the works it was in- tended to combat, and the state of society in which it was destined to appear. For half a century before it appeared, the whole genius of France had been incessantly directed to undermine the principles of religion. The days of Pascal and Fenelon, of Saurin and Bourdaloue, of Bossuct and Massillon, had passed away; the splendid talent of the seven- teenth century was no longer arrayed in the support of virtue — thesnprcmacy of the church had ceased to be exerted to thunder in the ear of princes the awful truths of judgment to come. Borne away in the torrent of corrup- tion, the church itself had yielded to the in- creasing vices of the age; its hierarchy had become involved in the passions they were destined to combat, and tlie cardinal's purple covered the shoulders of an associate in the midnight orgies of the Regent Orleans. Such was the audacity of vice, the recklessness of fashion, and the supineness of religion, that Madame Rnland tells us, what astonished her in her youthful days was, that the heaven it- self did not open, to rain down upon the guilty metropolis, as on the cities of the .Jordan, a tempest of consuming fire. While such was theprofligacy of powT and the audacity of crime, jihilosophic tali-nt lent its aid to overwhelm the remaining safeguards of religious belief. The middle and the lower orders could not, indeed, participate in the luxurious vices of their wealthy superiors but they could woll be persuaded that the faith which permitted such enormities, the religion which was stained by such crimes, was a sys« JO ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. tem of hj'pocrisy and deceit. The passion for innovation, which more than any other feature characterized that period in France, invaded the precincts of religion as well as the bul- warks of the state — the throne and the altar; the restraints of this world and the next, as is ever the case, crumbled together. For half a century, all the genius of France had been incessantly directed to overturn the sanctity of Christianity; its corruptions w'ere repre- sented as its very essence ; its abuses part of its necessary effects. Ridicule, ever more powerful than reason with a frivolous age, lent its aid to overturn the defenceless fabric ; and for more than one generation, not one writer of note had appeared to maintain the hopeless cause. Voltaire and Diderot, D'Alem- bert and Raynal, Laplace and Lagrange, had lent the weight of their illustrious names, or the powers of their versatile minds, to carry on the war. The Encyclopedic was a vast battery of infidelity incessantl)^ directed against Christianity; vAiile the crowd of licentious novelists, with which the age abounded — Louvet, Crebillon, Laclos, and a host of others — insinuated the poison, mixed up with the strongest allurements to the passions, and the most voluptuous seductions to the senses. This inundation of infidelity was soon fol- lowed by sterner days ; to the unrestrained in- dulgence of passion succeeded the unfettered march of crime. With the destruction of all the bonds which held society together ; with the removal of all the restraints on vice or guilt, the fabric of civilization and religion speedily was dissolved. To the licentious orgies of the Regent Orleans succeeded the infernal furies of the Revolution : from the same Palais Royal from whence had sprung those fountains of courtly corruption, soon issued forth the fiery streams of democracy. Enveloped in this burning torrent, the institutions, the faith, the nobles, the throne, were destroyed; the worst instruments of the supreme justice, the pas- sions and ambition of men, Avere suffered to work their unresisted way ; and in a few years the religion of eighteen hundred years was abolished, its priests slain or exiled, its Sab- bath abolished, its rites proscribed, its faith unknown. Infancy came into the world with- out a blessing, age left it without a hope; marriage no longer received a benediction, sickness Avas left without consolation; the village bell ceased to call the poor to their weekly day of sanctity and repose ; the village churchyard to witness the weeping train of mourners attending their rude forefathers to their last home. The grass grew in the churches of every parish in France ; the dead without a blessing were thrust into vast charnel-houses ; marriage was contracted be- fore a civil magistrate ; and infancy, untaught to pronounce the name of God, longed only for the period when the passions and indul- gencies of life were to commence. It was in these disastrous days that Chateau- briand arose, and bent the force of his lofty mind to restore the fallen but imperishable Taith of his fathers. In early youth, he was at first carried away by the fashionable infidelity rf his times; and in his " Essais Historiques," which he published in 1792, in London, whila the principles of virtue and natural religion are unceasingly maintained, he seems to have doubted whether the Christian religion was not crumbling with the institutions of society, and speculated what faith was to be established on its ruins. But misfortune, that great cor- rector of the vices of the world, soon changed these faulty views. In the days of exile and adversity, when, by the waters of Babylon, he sat doAvn and wept, he reverted to the faith and the belief of his fathers, and inhaled in the school of adversity those noble maxims of devotion and duty which have ever since regulated his conduct in life. Undaunted, though alone, he placed himself on the ruins of the Christian faith; renewed, with Hercu- lean strength, a contest Avhich the talents and vices of half a century had to all appearance rendered hopeless ; and, speaking to the hearts of men, now purified by sufiering, and cleansed by the agonizing ordeal of revolution, scattered far and wide the seeds of a rational and a manly piety. Other writers have folloAved in the same noble career: Salvandy and Guizot have traced the beneficial effects of religion upon modern society, and drawn from the last results of revolutionary experience just and sublime conclusions as to the adaptation of Christianity to the wants of humanity; but it is the glory of Chateaubriand alone to have come forth the foremost in the fight; to have planted himself on the breach, when it Avas streAved only Avith the dead and the dying, and, strong in the consciousness of gigantic powers, stood undismayed against a nation in arms. To be successful in the contest, it Avas indis- pensable that the weapons of Avarfare should be totally changed. When the ideas of men Avere set adrift by reA^oluiionary changes, Avhen the authority of ages Avas set at nought, and from centuries of experience appeals AA'ere made to weeks of innovation, itAvas in vain to refer to -the great or the Avise of former ages. Perceiving at once the immense change which had taken place in the Avorld AA-hom he ad- dressed, Chateaubriand saAv, that he must alter altogether the means by which they Avere to be influenced. Disregarding, therefore, entirely the Aveight of authorit)% laying aside almost every thing Avhich had been advanced in sup- port of religion by its professed disciples, he applied himself to accumulate the conclusions in its favour which arose from its internal beauty; from its beneficent effect upon society; from the changes it had Avrought upon the civilization, the happiness, and destinies of mankind; from its analogy with the sublimest tenets of natural religion; from its unceasing progress, its indefinite extension, and undecay- ing yotith. He observed, that it drew its sup- port from such hidden recesses of the human heart, that it flourished most in periods of dis- aster and calamity; derived strength from the fountains of sufl^ering, and, banished in all but form from the palaces of princes, spread its roots far and Avide in the cottages of the poor From the intensity of suSering produced by the Revolution, therefore, he conceived the hope, that the feelings of religion would ulti mately resume their sAvay : AA'hen the waters CHATEAUBRIAND. 11 of bitterness vreve let loose, the consolations of devotion would again be felt to be indispen- sable; and the spirit of the gospel, banished during the sunshine of corrupt prosperity, re- turn to the repentant human heart with the tears and tlie storms of advcrsit}'. Proceeding on these just and sublime prin- ciples, this great author availed himself of ever}' engine which fancy, experience, or poe- try could suggest, to sway the hearts of his readers. He knew well that he was address- ing an impassioned and volatile generation, upon whom reason would be thrown awa)^ if not enforced with eloquence, and argument lost, if not clothed in the garb of fancy. To etfect his purpose, therefore, of rc-opening in the hearts of his readers the all but extin- guished fountains of religious feeling, he sum- moned to his aid the whole aid which learn- ing, or travelling, or poetry, or fancy, could supply; and scrupled not to employ his powers as a writer of romance, an historian, a descriptive traveller, and a poet, to forward the great work of Christian renovation. Of his object in doing this, he has himself given the following account.* "There can be no doubt that the Genius of Christianity would have been a work entirely out of place in the age of Louis XIV.; and the critic who observed that Massillon would never have published such a book, spoke an un- doubted truth. Most certainly the author -would never have thought of writing such a work if there had not existed a host of poems, romances, and books of all sorts, where Christianity was exposed to every species of derision. But since these poems, romances, and books exist, and arc in every one's hands, it becomes in- dispensable to extricate religion from the sar- casms of impiety; when it has been written on all sides that Christianity is ' barbaroust, ridicitlous, the eternal enemy of the artfs and of genius ,' it is necessary to prove that it is neither barbarous, nor ridiculous, nor the enemy of arts or of genius; and that that which is made by the pen of ridicule to appear diminutive, ignoble, in bad taste, without either charms or tenderness, may be made to appear grand, noble, simple, impressive, and divine, in tlie hands of a man of religious feeling. "If it is not permitted to defend religion on what may be called its terrestrial side, if no effort is to be made to prevent ridicule from attaching to its sublime institutions, there will always remain a weak and undefended quarter. There all the strokes at it will be aimed ; there you will be caught M'ithout defence; from thence you will receive your death-wound. Is not that what has already arrived! Was it not by ridicule and pleasantry that Voltaire succeeded in sliakingthe foundations of faith] Will you attempt to answer by theological arguments, or the forms of the syllogism, licen- tious novels or irreligious epigrams? Will formal disquisitions ever prevent an infidel generation from being carried away by clever verses, or deterred from the altar by the fear of ridicule? Does not every one know that in •All the passasfis rited nrn Irnnstatod liy onrsdvcq. There is an Englljli version, \vc believe, but we liavc bev«r seen it. the French nation a happy bon-mot, impiety clothed in a felicitous expression, a. fcli.v culpa- produce a greater effect than volumes of reasoning or metaphysics? Persuade young men that an honest man can be a Christian without being a fool; convince him that lie is in error when he believes that none but capu chins and old women believe in religion, and your cause is gained ; it will be time enough to complete tiie victory to present yourself armed with theological reasons, but what you must begin with is an inducement to read your book. What is most needed is a popular work on religion; those who have hitherto written on it have too often fallen into the error of the traveller who tries to get his com- panion at one ascent to the summit of a rugged mountain when he can hardly crawl at its foot — you must show him at every step varied and agreeable objects; allow him to stop to gather the llowcrs which are scattered along his path, and from one resting-place to another he will at length gain the summit. "The author has not intended this work merely for scholars, priests, or doctors ; what he wrote for was the wie« of the world, and what he aimed at chiefly were the considera- tions calculated to affect their minds. If you do not keep steadily in view that principle, if you forget for a moment the class of readers for whom the Genius of Christianity was in- tended, you will understand nothing of this work. It was intended to be read by the most incredulous man of letters, the most volatile youth of pleasure, with the same facility as the first turns over a work of impiety, or the second devours a corrupting novel. Do you intend then, exclaim the well-meaning ad- vocates for Christianity, to render religion a matter of fashion? Would to God, I reply, that that divine religion was really in fashion, in the sense that what is fashionable indicates the prevailing opinion of the world! Individual hypocrisy, indeed, might be increased by sucU a change, but public morality would unques tionably be a gainer. The rich would no longer make it a point of vanity to corrupt the poor, the master to pervert the mind of his domestic, the fathers of families to pour lessons of athe- ism into their children ; the practice of piety would lead to a belief in its truths, and with the devotion we sliould see revive the manners and the virtues of the best ages of the world. "Voltaire, when he attacked Christianity, knew mankind well enough not to seek to avail himself of what is called the opinion of the world, and with that view he employed his talents to bring impiety into fashion. He suc- ceeded by rendering religion ridiculous in the eyes of a frivolous generation. It is this ridi- cule which the author of the Genius of Chris- tianity has, beyond every thing, sought to eflace; that was the olq'ect of his work. He may have failed in the execution, but the ob- ject surely was highly important. To con- sider Christianity in its relation with hu'.nan society; to trace the changes which it has effected in the reason and the passions of man; to show how it has modified (he genius of arts and of letters, inoulci'-d the spirit of modern nations ; in a word, tc unlold all lh» 12 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. marvels which religion has wrought in the regions of poetry, morality, politics, history, and public charity, must always be esteemed a noble undertaking. As to its execution, he abandons himself, with submission, to the criticisms of those who appreciate the spirit of the design. " Take, for example, a picture, professedly of an impious tendency, and place beside it another picture on the same subject from the Genius of Christianity, and I will venture to affirm that the latter picture, however feebly executed, will weaken the impression of the first, so powerful is the effect of simple truth when compared to the most brilliant sophisms. Voltaire has frequently turned the religious orders into ridicule ; well, put beside one of his burlesque representations the chapter on the Missions, that where the order of the Hospitallei-s is depicted as succouring the travellers in the desert, or the monks relieving the sick in the hospitals, attending those dying of the plague in the lazarettos, or accompany- ing the criminal to the scaffold, what irony will not be disarmed — what malicious smile will not be converted into tears 1 Answer the reproaches made to the worship of the Chris- tians for their ignorance, by appealing to the immense labours of the. ecclesiastics who saved from destruction the manuscripts of antiquity. Reply to the accusations of bad taste and barbarity, by referring to the works of Bossuet and Fenelon. Oppose to the carica- tures of saints and of angels, the sublime effects of Christianity on the dramatic part of poetry, on eloquence, and the fine arts, and say whether the impression of ridicule will long maintain its ground 1 Should the author have no other success than that of having displayed before the eyes of an infidel age a long series of religious pictures without exciting disgust, he would deem his labours not useless to the cause of humanity." — III. 263—266. These observations appear to us as just as they are profound, and they are the reflections not merely of a sincere Christian, but a man practically acquainted with the state of the world. It is of the utmost importance, no doubt, that there should exist works on the Christian faith, in which the arguments of the skeptic should be combated, and to which the Christian disciple might refer with confidence for a refutation of the objections which have been urged against his religion. But great as is the merit of such productions, their bene- ficial effects are limited in their operation com- pared with those which are produced by such writings as we are considering. The hardened sceptic will never turn to a work on divinity for a solution of his paradoxes ; and men of the world can never be persuaded to enter on serious arguments even on the most moment- ous subject of human belief. It is the indiffcr- tnce, not the skepticism of such men, which is chiefly to be dreaded : the danger to be appre- hended is not that they will say there is no God, but that they will live altogether without God in the world. It has happened but too frequently that divines, in their zeal for the Srogress of Christianity among such men, ave augmented the very evil they intended to remove. They have addressed themselves in general to them as if they were combatants drawn out in a theological dispute ; they have urged a mass of arguments which they were unable to refute, but which were too uninterest- ing to be even examined, and while they flat- tered themselves that they had effectually silenced their opponents' objections, those whom they addressed have silently passed bj' on the other side. It is, therefore, of incalcu- lable importance that some writings should exist which should lead men imperccplibhj into the ways of truth, which should insinuate themselves into the tastes, and blend them- selves with the refinements of ordinary life, and perpetually recur to the cultivated mind with all that it admires, or loves, or venerates, in the world. Nor let it be imagined that reflections such as these are not the appropriate theme of re- ligious instruction — that they do not form the fit theme of Christian meditation. Whatever leads our minds habitually to the Author of the Universe ; — whatever mingles the voice of nature with the revelation of the gospel ; — whatever teaches us to see, in all the changes of the world, the varied goodness of him, in whom "we live, and move, and have our being," — brings us nearer to the spirit of the Saviour of mankind. But it is not only as encouraging a sincere devotion, that these re- flections are favourable to Christianity ; there is something, moreover, ^ccM?ia»7y allied to its spirit in such observations of e^cternal nature. When our Saviour prepared himself for his temptation, his agony, and death, he retired to the wilderness of Judaea, to inhale, we may venture to believe, a holier spirit amidst its solitary scenes, and to approach to a nearer communion with his Father, amidst the sub- limest of his works. It is with similar feelings, and to worship the same Father, that the Christian is permitted to enter the temple of nature ; and by the spirit of his religion, there is a language infused into the objects which she presents, unknown to the worshipper of former times. To all indeed the same objects appear — the same sun shines — the same hea- vens are open: but to the Christian alone it is permitted to know the Author of these things ; to see his spirit "move in the breeze and blossom in the spring," and to read, in the changes which occur in the material world, the varied expression of eternal love. It is from the influence of Christianity accordingly that the key has been given to the signs of nature. It was only when the Spirit of God moved on the face of the deep, that order and beauty was seen in the world. It is accordingly peculiarly well worthy of observation, that the beauty of nature, as felt in modern times, seems to have been almost un- known to the writers of antiquit}'. They de- scribed occasionally the scenes in which they dwelt ; but, if we except Virgil, whose gentle mind seems to have anticipated, in this in- stance, the influence of the gospel, never with any deep feeling of their beauty. Then, as now, the citadel of Athens looked upon the evening sun, and her temples flamed in his setting beam; but what Athenian writer ever CHATEAUBRIAND. 13 described the matchless glories of the scene ? Then, as now, the silvery clouds of the ^gean sea rolled round her verdant isles, and sported in the azure vault of heaven ; but what Gre- cian poet has been inspired by the sight? The Italian lakes spread their waves beneath a cloudless sky, and all that is lovely in nature was gathered around them ; yet even Eustace tells us, that a few detached lines is all that is left in regard to them by the Roman poets. The Alps themselves, "The palaces of nature, whose vast walls Jlave piiinarled in rloiuis their snowy scalps, And ttironed eternity in icy halls Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls The avalanche— the thunderbolts of snow." Even these, the most glorious objects which the eye of man can behold, were regarded by the ancients with sentiments only of dismay or horror; as a barrier from hostile nations, or as the dwelling of barbarous tribes. The torch of religion had not then lightened the face of nature; they knew not the language which she spoke, nor felt that holy spirit, which to the Christian gives the sublimity of these scenes. Chateaubriand divides his great work into four parts. The first treats of the doctrinal parts of religion : the second and the third, the relations of that religion with poetry, litera- ture, and the arts. The fourth, the ceremonies of public worship, and the services rendered to mankind by the clergy, regular and secular. On the mysteries of faith he commences with these fine observ'ations. " There is nothing beautiful, sweet, or grand in life, but in its mysteries. The sentiments which agitate us most strongly are enveloped in obscurity; modesty, virtuous love, sincere friucLship, have all their secrets, with which the world must not be made acquainted. Hearts which love understand each other by a word; half of each is at all times open to the other. Innocence itself is but a holy ignorance, and the most ineffable of mysteries. Infancy is only happy, because it as yet knows nothing; age miserable, because it has nothing more to learn. Happily for it, when the mysteries of life are ending, those of immortalitj'- commence. " If it is thus with the sentiments, it is as- suredly not less so with the virtues; the most angelic are those which, emanating directly from the Deity, such as charity, love to with- draw themselves from all regards, as if fear- ful tn betray their celestial origin. " If we turn to the understanding, we shall find that the pleasures of thought also have a certain connection with the mysterious. To what sciences do we unceasingly return 1 To those which always leave something still to be discovered, and fix our regards on a per- spective which is never to terminate. If we wander in the desert, a sort of instinct leads as to shun the plains where the eye embraces at once the whole circumference of nature, to plunge into forests, those forests the cradle of religion, whose shades and solitudes arc filled with the recollections of prodigies, where the ravens and the doves nourished the prophets and fathers of the church. If we visit a modern monument, whose origin or destination is known, it excites no attention ; but if we meet on a desert isle, in the midst of the ocean, with a mutilated statue pointing to the west, with its pedestal covered with hieroglyphics, and worn by the -winds, what a subject of meditation is presented to the traveller ! Everj thing is concealed, every thing is hidden in the universe. Man himself is the grealeKt mystery of the whole. Whence comes th* spark which we call existence, and in what obscurity is it to be extinguished 1 The Eter- nal has placed our birth, and our death, under the form of two veiled phantoms, at the two extremities of our career; the one produces the inconceivable gift of life, which the other is ever ready to devour. "It is not surprising, then, considering the passion of the human mind for the mysterious, that the religions of every country should have had their impenetrable secrets. God forbid ! that I should compare their mysteries to those of the true faith, or the unfathomable depths of the Sovereign in the heavens, to the changing obscurities of those gods which are the work of human hands. All that I observe is, that there is no reUgion without mysteries, and that it is they with the sacrifice which every where constitute the essence of the worship. God is the great secret of nature, the Deity was veiled in Egypt, and the Sphynx mms seated at the entrance of his temples." — I. 13, 14. On the three great sacraments of the Church, Baptism, Confession, and the Communion, he makes the following beautiful observations : — "Baptism, the first of the sacraments which religion confers upon man, clothes him, in the words of the Apostle, with Jesus Christ. That sacrament reveals at once the corruption in which we were born, the agonizing pains which attended our birth, and the tribulations which follow us into the world ; it tells us that our faults will descend upon our children, and that we are all jointly responsible ; a terrible truth, Avhich, if duly considered, would alone suffice to render the reign of virtue universal in the world. " Behold the infant in the midst of the waters of the Jordan ; the man of the wilderness pours the purifying stream on his head; the river of the Patriarchs, the camels on its banks, the Temple of Jerusalem, the cedars of Lebanon, seem to regard with interest the mighty spec- tacle. Behold in mortal life that infant near the sacred fountain ; a family filled with thank- fulness surround it; renounce in its name the sins of the world; bestow on it with joy the name of its grandfather, which seems thus to become immortal, in its perpetual lenoTa- tion by the fruits of love from generation to generation. Even now the father is im- patient to take his infant in his arms, to re- place it in its mother's bosom, who listens be- hind the curtains to all (he thrilling sounds of the sacred ceremony. The whole family sur- round the maternal bed; tears of joy. mingled with the transports of religion, fall from every eye; the new name of the inf;int. the old name of its ancestor, is repeated by every moiitli, and every one mingling the recollections of the past with the joys of the present, thinks that he sees the venerable grandfather revive 14 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. in the new-born which has taken his name. Such is the domestic spectacle which through- out all the Christian world the sacrament of Baptism presents ; but religion, ever mingling lessons of duty with scenes of joy, shows us the son of kings clothed in purple, renouncing the grandeur of the world, at the same fountain where the child of the poor in rags abjures the pomps by which he will in all probability never be tempted. " Confession follows baptism ; and the Church, with that wisdom which it alone possesses, fixed the era of its commencement at that period when first the idea of crime can enfer the infant mind, that is at seven years of age. All men, including the philosophers, how different soever their opinions maybe on other subjects, have regarded the sacrament of penitence as one of the sti-ongest barriers against crime, and a chef-d'osuvre of wisdom. What innumerable restitutions and repara- tions, says Rousseau, has confession caused to be made in Catholic countries ! According to Voltaire, ' Confession is an admirable inven- tion, a bridle to crime, discovered in the most remote antiquity, for confession was recognised in the celebration of all the ancient mysteries. We have adopted and sanctified that wise custom, and its efiects have always been found to be admirable in inclining hearts, ulcerated by hatred, to forgiveness.' "But for that salutary institution, the guilty would give w^ay to despair. In what bosom would he discharge the Aveight of his heart 1 In that of a friend — Who can trust the friend- ships of the world 1 Shall he take the deserts for a confident 1 Alas! the deserts are ever filled to the ear of crime with those trumpets which the parricide Nero heard round the tomb of his mother. When men and nature are unpitiable, it is indeed consolatory to find a Deity inclined to pardon; but it belongs only to the Christian religion to have made twin sisters of Innocence and Repentance. " In fine, the Communion presents instruc- tive ceremony ; it teaches morality, for we must be pure to approach it ; it is the offering of the fruits of the earth to the Creator, and it recalls the sublime and touching history of the Son of Man. Blended with the recollection of Easter, and of the first covenant of God with man, the origin of the communion is lost in the obscurity of an infant world; it is related to our first ideas of religion and society, and recalls the pristine equality of the human race ; in fine, it perpetuates the recollection of our primeval fall, of our redemption, and re- acceptance by God." — I. 30 — 46. These and similar passages, not merely in this work, which professes to be of a popular cast, but in others of the highest class of Catholic divinity, suggest an idea which, the more we extend our reading, the more we shall find to be just, viz., that in the greater and pu rer writers on religion, of whatever church or age, the leading doctrines are nearly the -same, and that the differences Avhich divide their followers, and distract the Avorld, are seldom, on any material or important points, to be met with in writers of a superior caste. Chateaubriand is a faithful, and in some re- spects, perhaps, a bigoted, Catholic ; yet there is hardly a word here, or in any other part of his writings on religion, to which a Christian in any country may not subscribe, and which is not calculated in all ages and places to for- ward the great work of the purification and improvement of the human heart. Travellers have often observed, that in a certain rank in all countries manners are the same; naturalists know, that at a certain elevation above the sea in all latitudes, we meet with the same vegetable productions; and philosophers have often remarked, that in the highest class of in- tellects, opinions on almost every subject in all ages and places are the same. A similar uniformity may be observed in the principles of the greatest Avriters of the world on religion : and while the inferior followers of their dif- ferent tenets branch out into endless divisions, and indulge in sectarian rancour, in the more lofty regions of intellect the principles are substantially the same, and the objects of all identical. So small a proportion do all the disputed points in theology bear to the great objects of religion, love to God, charity to man, and the subjugation of human passion. On the subject of marriage, and the reasons for its indissolubility, our author presents us with the following beautiful observations : — " Habit and a long life together are more necessary to happiness, and even to love, than is generally imagined. No one is happy with the object of his attachment until he has passed many days, and above all, many days of mis- fortune, with her. The married pair must know each other to the bottom of their souls ; the mysterious veil which covered the two spouses in the primitive church, must be raised in its inmost folds, how closely soever it may be kept drawn to the rest of the world. " What ! on account of a fit of caprice, or a burst of passion, am I to be exposed to the fear of losing my wife and my children, and to renounce the hope of passing my declining days with theml Let no one imagine that fear will make me become a better husband. No ; we do not attach ourselves to a posses- sion of which we are not secure; we do not love a property which we are in danger of losing. " We must not give to Hymen the wings of Love, nor make of a sacred reality a fleeting phantom. One thing is alone sufficient to de- stroy your happiness in such transient unions ; you will constantly compare one to the other, the wife you have lost to the one you have gained ; and do not deceive yourself, the balance will always incline to the past, for so God has constructed the human heart. This distraction of a sentiment which should be indivisible will empoison all your joys. When you caress your new infant, you will think of the smiles of the one you have lost; when you press your wife to your bosom, your hrtirt will tell you that she is not the first. Every thing in man tends to unity; he is no longer happy when he is divided, and, like God, who made him in his image, his soul seeks incessantly to concentrate into one point the past, the pre- sent, and the future. " The wife of a Christian is not a simple CHATEAUBRIAND. IS nicrtal: She is a mysterious angelic being: the fle.vli of the flesh, the blood of the blood of lier husband. Man, in uniting himself to her, does nnthing but regain part of tlie substance which he has lost. His soul as ^vell as his body are incomplete without his wife: he has strength, she has beauty ; he combats tlie enemy and labours the fields, but he under- stands nothing of domestic life; his companion is awanting to prepare his repast and sweeten his existence. He has his crosses, and the partner of his couch is there to soften them : his days may be sad and troubled, but in the chaste arm's of his wife he finds comfort and repose. Without woman man would be rude, gross, and solitar\'. Woman spreads around him the flowers of existence, as the creepers of the forests which decorate the trunks of sturdy oaks with their perfumed garlands. Finally, the Christian pair live and die united: together they rear the fruits of their union; in the dust they lie side by side ; and they arc reunited beyond the limits of the tomb." — I. 78, 79. The extreme unction of the Catholic Church is described in these touching words : "Come and behold the most moving spec- tacle which the woi'ld can exhibit — the death of the faithful. The dying Christian is no longer a man of this world; he belongs no farther to his country; all his relations with society have ceased. For him the calculations of time are closed, and the great era of eternity has commenced. A priest seated beside his bed pours the consolations of religion into his dying ear : the holy minister converses with the expiring penitent on the immortality of the soul; and that sublime scene which antiquity presented but once in the death of the greatest of her philosophers, is renewed every day at the couch where the humblest of the Christians expires. " At length the supreme moment arrives : one sacrament has opened the gates of the world, another is about to close them ; religion rocked the cradle of existence; its sweet strains and its maternal hand will lull it to sleep in the arms of death. It prepares the baptism of a second existence ; but it is no longer with water, but oil, the emblem of celestial incorruption. The liberating sacra- ment dissolves, one by one, the chords which attach the faithful to this world: the soul, half escaped from its earthly prison, is almost visi- ble to the senses, in the smile which plays around his lips. Already he hears the music of the seraphims; already he longs to lly to those regions, where hope divine, daughter of virtue and death, beckons him to approach. At length the angel of peace, descending from the heavens, touches with his golden sceptre his wearied eyelids, and closes them in deli- cious repose to the light. He dies : and so sweet has been his departure, that no one has heard his last sigh; and his friends, long after he is no more, preserve silence round his couch, still thinking that he slept; so like the sloop of infancy is the death of the just." — I. 09—71. It is against pride, as every one knows, that the chief eflbrts of the Catholic Church have always been directed, because tiiey con- sider it as the source of all other crime. Whether this is a just view may, perhaps, be doubted, to the extent at least that they carry it; but there can be but cne opinion as to the eloquence of the apology which Chateaubriand makes for this selection. "In the virtues preferred by Christianity, Ave perceive the same knowledge of human nature. Before the coming of Christ, the soul of man was a chaos ; but no sooner was the word heard, than all the elements arranged themselves in the moral Avorld, as at the same divine inspiration triey had produced the mar- vels of material creation. The virtues ascended like pure fires into the heavens; some, like brilliant suns, attracted the regards by their resplendent light; others, more modest, soughf the shade, where nevertheless their lustre could not be concealed. From that moment an admirable balance was established between the forces and the weaknesses of existence. Religion directed its thunders against pride, the vice which is nourished by the virtues ; it discovers it in the inmost recesses of the heart, and follows it out in all its metamorphoses ; the sacraments in a holj' legion march against it, while humility, clothed in sackcloth and ashes, its eyes downcast and bathed in tears, becomes one of the chief virtues of the faith- ful."— I. 74. On the tendency of all the fables concerning creation to remount to one general and eternal truth, our author presents the following reflec- tions : " After this exposition of the dreams of philosophy, it may seem useless to speak of the fancy of the poets. Who does not know Deucalion and Pyrrha, the age of gold and of ironl What innumerable traditions are scat- tered through tlie earth ! In India, an elephant sustains the globe ; the sun in Peru has brought forth all the marvels of existence; in Canada, the Great Spirit is the father of the world ; in Greenland, man has emerged from an egg ; in fine, Scandinavia has beheld the birth of Askur and Emla; Odin has poured in the breath of life, Ploenerus reason, and Loedur blood and beauty. ' Askiim et Eiiilaiii oiiini conalii dcstiliilos Aiiitiiani noc iinss^iilcliaiit, rationcm mn- liahobant Nef. saiiu'iiiiiMMi, iicr, seriiiniKMii, ncc rariiMii vemistam, Aiiiiiwiin (Icilil Oiliiiiis, rationciii dcilit lldMicriisi, I.dfilur sangiiiiK'ui adiliilil ct I'aricni vcimstam.' "In these various traditions, we find our- selves placed between the stories of children and the abstractions of philosophers ; if we were obliged to choose, it were better to take the first. " But to discover the original of the picture in the midst of so many copies, we must recur to that which, by its unity and the perfection of its parts, unfolds the genius of a master. It is that which we find in Genesis, the original of all those pictures whieh we sec reproduced in so many dilferent traditions. What can be at once more natural and more magnificcnt,- more easy to conceive, and more in unisou with human reason, than the Creator descend- ing amidst the night of ages to create light by a word 1 In an instant, the sun is seen sus- pended in the heavens, in the midst of an im 16 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. mense azure vault; with invisible bonds he envelopes the planets, and whirls them round his burning axle; the sea and the forests ap- pear on the globe, and their earliest voices arise to announce to the universe that great marriage, of which God is the priest, the earth the nuptial couch, and the human race the posterity."— I. 97, 98. On the appearance of age on the globe, and its first aspect when fresh from the hands of the Creator, the author presents an hypothesis more in unison with the imagination of a poet than the observations of a philosopher, on the gradual formation of all objects destined for a long endurance. He supposes that every thing was at once created as we now see it. "It is probable that the Author of nature planted at once aged forests and their youthful progeny ; that animals arose at the same time, some full of years, others buoyant with the vigour and adorned with the grace of youth. The oaks, while they pierced with their roots the fruitful earth, without doubt bore at once the old nests of rooks, and the young progeny of doves. At once grew a chrysalis and a butterfly ; the insect bounded on the grass, suspended its golden egg in the forests, or trembled in the undulations of the air. .The bee, which had not yet lived a morning, already counted the generations of flowers by its ambrosia — the sheep was not without its lamb, the d'-e without its fawns. The thickets already contained the nightingale, astonished at the melody of their first airs, as they poured forth the new-born eflfusion of their infant loves. " Had the world not arisen at once young and old, the grand, the serious, the impressive, would have disappeared from nature ; for all ihese sentiments depend for their very essence on ancient things. The marvels of existence \^'^ould have been unknown. The ruined rock would not have hung over the abyss beneath; the woods would not have exhibited that splendid variety of trunks bending under the weight of years, of trees hanging over the bed of streams. The inspired thoughts, the vene- rated sounds, the magic voices, the sacred hor- ror of the forests, would have vanished with the vaults which serve for their retreats ; and the solitudes of earth and heaven would have remained naked and disenchanted in losing the columns of oaks which united them. On the first day Avhen the ocean dashed against the shore, he bathed, be assured, sands beai'ing all the marks of the action of his waves for ages ; cliffs strewed with the eggs of innumerable sea- fowl, and rugged capes which sustained argainst the waters the crumbling shores of the earth. " Without that primeval age, there would have been neither pomp nor majesty in the work of the Most High ; and, contrary to all our conceptions, nature in the innocence of man would have been less beautiful than it is now in the days of his corruption. An insipid childhood of plants, of animals, of elements, would have covered the earth, without the poetical feelings, which now constitute its principal charm. But God was not so feeble a designer of the grove of Eden as the incredu- lous would lead us to believe. Man, the sove- reign of nature, was born at thirty years of age, in order that his powers should correspond ^ with the full-grown magnificence of his new empire, — while his consort, doubtless, had already passed her sixteenth spring, though yet in the slumber of nonentity, that she might be in harmony with the flowers, the birds, the innocence, the love, the beauty of the youthful part of the universe."— L 137, 138. In the rhythm of prose these are the colours of poetry, but still this was not to all appear- ance the order of creation ; and here, as in many other instances, it will be found that the deductions of experience present conclusions more sublime than the most fervid imagina- tion has been able to conceive. Every thing announces that the great works of nature are carried on by slow and insensible gradations ; continents, the abode of millions, are formed by the confluence of innumerable rills ; vege- tation, commencing with the lichen and the moss, rises at length into the riches and magni- ficence of the forest. Patient analysis, philo- sophical discovery, have now taught us that it was by the same slow progress that the great work of creation was accomplished. The fos- sil remains of antediluvian ages have laid open the primeval works of nature; the long period which elapsed before the creation of man, the vegetables which then covered the earth, the animals which sported amidst its watery wastes, the life which first succeeded to chaos, all stand revealed. To the astonishment of man- kind, the order of creation, unfolded in Genesis, is proved by the contents of the earth beneath every part of its surface to be precisely that which has actually been followed ; the days of the Creator's workmanship turn out to be the days of the Most High, not of his uncreated subjects, and to correspond to ages of our ephemeral existence ; and the great sabbath of the earth took place, not, as we imagined, when the sixth sun had set after the first morn- ing had beamed, but when the sixth period had expired, devoted by Omnipotence to the mighty undertaking. God then rested from his labours, because the great changes of matter, and the successive production and annihilation of dif- ferent kinds of animated existence, ceased; creation assumed a settled form, and laws came into operation destined for indefinite en- durance. Chateaubriand said truly, that to man, when he first opened his eyes on paradise, nature appeared with all the majesty of age as well as all the freshness of youth; but it was not in a week, but during a series of ages, that the magnificent spectacle had been assembled ; and for the undying delight of his progeny, ia all future years, the powers of nature for count- less time had been already exerted. The fifth book of the Genie de Christianisme treats of the proofs of the existence of God, derived from the wonders of material nature — in other words, of the splendid subject of natural theology. On such a subject, the ob- servations of a mind so stored with knowledge, and gifted with such powers of eloquence, may be expected to be something of extraordinary excellence. Though the part of his work, ac- cordingly, which treats of this subject, is neces- sarily circumscribed, from the multitude of others with which it is overwhelmed, it is of CHATEAUBRIAND. 17 surpassing beauty, and snperioT in point of description to any tiling which !j)as been pro- duced on the same subject by the genius of Britain. " There is a God ! The herbs of tlie valley, the cedars of the mountain, bless him — the in- sect sports in his beams — the elephant salutes him with the rising orb of the day — the bird sings him in the foliage — the thunder pro- claims him in the heavens — the ocean declares his immensity — man alone has said, ' There is no God !' "Unite in thought, at the same instant, the most beautiful objects in nature ; suppose that you see at once all the hours of the day, and all the seasons of the year; a morning of spring and a morning of autumn ; a night be- spangled with stars, and a night covered with clouds; meadows enamelled with Uowers, forests hoary with snow; fields gilded by the tints of autumn ; then alone you ivill have a just conception of the universe. While 3^ou are gazing on that sun which is plunging under the vault of the west, another observer admires him emerging from the gilded gates of the east. By what unconceivable magic does that aged star, which is sinking fatigued and burning in the shades of the evening, reappear at the same instant fresh and humid with the rosy dew of the morning 1 At every instant of the day the glorious orb is at once rising — resplendent at noonday, and setting in the west; or rather our senses deceive us, and there is, properly speaking, no east, or south, or west in the world. Every thing reduces itself to one single point, from whence the King of Day sends forth at once a triple light in one single substance. The bright splendour is perhaps that which nature can present that is most beautiful; for while it gives us an idea of the perpetual magnificence and resistless power of God, it exhibits, at the same time, a shining image of the glorious Trinity." The instincts of animals, and their adapta- tion to the wants of their existence, have long furnished one of the most interesting subjects of study to the naturalist, and of meditation to the devout observer of creation. Chateau- briand has painted, Avith his usual descriptive powers, one of the most familiar of these ex- amples — " What ingenious springs move the feet of a bird? It is not by a contraction of muscles dependent on his will that he maintains him- .self firm upon a branch ; his foot is constructed in such a way that Avhen it is pressed in the centre, the toes close of their own accord upon the body which supports it. It results from this mechanism, that the talons of the bird grasp more or less firmly the object on which it has alighted, in proportion to the agitation, more or less violent, which it has received. Thus, when we see at the approach of night during winter the crows perched on the scathed summit of an aged oak, wc sup- pose that, watchful and atlentive, they main- tain their place with pain during the rocking of the winds; and yet, heedless of danger, an(l mocking the tempest, the winds only bring them profounder slumber; — (he blasts of the north attach them more firmly to the branch, ?. from whence we every instant expect to sec them precipitated ; and like the old seaman whose hammock is suspended to the roof of his vessel, the more he is tossed by the winds, the more profound is his repose." — I. 147, 148. "Amidst the difiercnt instincts which the Sovereign of the universe has implanted in nature, one of the most wonderful is that which every year brings the fish of the pole to our temperate region. They come, without once mistaking their way, through the solitude of the ocean, to reach, on a fixed day, the stream where their hymen is to be celebrated. The spring prepares on our shores their nuptial pomp ; it covers the willows v/ith verdure, it spreads beds of moss in the waves to serve for curtains to its crystal couches. Hardly are these preparations completed when the enamelled legions appear; the animated navi- gators enliven our coasts ; some spring aloft from the surface of the waters, others balance themselves on the waves, or diverge from a common centre like innumerable Hashes of gold; these dart obliquely their shining bodies athwart the azure fluid, Avhile they sleep in the rays of the sun, which penetrates beneath the dancing surface of the waves. All, sport- ing in the joys of existence, meander, return, wheel about, dash across, form in squadron, separate, and reunite ; and the inhabitant of the seas, inspired by a breath of existence, pursues Avith bounding movements its mate, b)r the line of fire Avhich is reflected from her in the stream."— I. 152, 153. Chateaubriand's mind is full not only of the images but the sounds which attest the reign of animated nature. Equally familiar with those of the desert and of the cultivated plain, he has had his susceptibility alike open in both to the impressions which arise to a pious observer from their contemplation. "There is a law in nature relative to the cries of animals, which has not been sufficient- ly observed, and deserves to be so. The dif- ferent sounds of the inhabitants of the desert are calculated according to the grandeur or the sweetness of the scene where they arise, and the hour of the day Avhen they are heard The roaring of the lion, loud, rough, and tre mendous, is in unison with the desert scenes in Avhich it is heard; while the lowing of the oxen diffuses a pleasing calm through our valleys. The goat has something trembling and savage in its cry, like the rocks and ravines from which it loves to suspend itself. The war-horse imitates the notes of the trumpet that animates him to the charge, and, a,s if ho felt that he Avas not made for degrading evn- .ployments, he is siient under the spur of the labourer, and neighs under tiie rein of the AA'arrior. The night, by turns charming or sombre, is enlivened by the nighlingale or saddened by the oavI — the one sings for the zephyrs, the groves, the moon, the soul of lovers — the other for the Avinds, the forests, the darlcncss, and the dead. Finally, all the ani mals which live on others have a peculiar crj by Avhich they may be distinguished by the creatures AA'hich arc destined to be their prey." — T. IfjO. The making of birds' nest.i is on« of ibo 18 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. most common objects of observation. Listen to the reflections of genius and poetry on this beautiful subject. "The admirable wisdom of Providence is nowhere more conspicuous than in the nests of birds. It is impossible to contemplate, with- out emotion, the Divine goodness M'hich thus gives industry to the weak, and foresight to the thoughtless. " No sooner have the trees put forth their leaves, than a thousand little workmen com- mence their labours. Some bring long pieces of straw into the hole of an old wall ; others affix their edifice to the windows of a church; these steal a hair from the mane of ahorse; those bear away, with wings trembling beneath its weight, the fragment of wool which a lamb has left entangled in the briers. A thousand palaces at once arise, and eveiy palace is a nest ; within every nest is soon to be seen a charming metamorphosis ; first, a beautiful egg, then a little one covered with down. The little nestling soon feels his wings begin to grow ; his mother teaches him to raise himself on his bed of repose. Soon he takes courage enough to approach the edge of the nest, and casts a first look on the works of nature. Terrified and enchanted at the sight, he pre- cipitates himself amidst his brothers and sisters who have never as yet seen that spectacle ; but recalled a second time from his couch, the young king of the air, who still has the crown of infancy on his head, ventures to contemplate the boundless heavens, the waving summit of the pine-trees, and the vast labyrinth of fo- liage which lies beneath his feet. And, at the moment that the forests are rejoicing at the sight of their new inmate, an aged bird, who feels himself abandoned by his wings, quietly rests beside a stream; there, resigned and solitary, he tranquilly awaits ' death, on the banks of the same river where he sung his first loves, and whose trees still bear his nest and his melodious offspring." — I. 158. The subject of the migration of the feathered tribes furnishes this attentive observer of na- ture with many beautiful images. We have room only for the following extract; "In the first ages of the world, it was by the flowering of plants, the fall of the leaves, the departure and the arrival of birds, that the labourers and the shepherds regulated their labours. Thence has sprung the art of divina- tion among certain people ; they imagined that the birds which were sure to precede certain changes of the season or atmosphere, could not but be inspired by the Deit3% The ancient naturalists, and the poets, to whom Ave are indebted for the few remains of simplicity which still linger amongst us, show us hoAV marvellous was that manner of counting by the changes of nature, and what a charm it spread over the Avhole of existence. God is a profound secret. Man, created in his image, is equally incomprehensible. It was therefore an ineffable harmony to see the periods of his existence regulated by measures of time as harmonious as himself. "Beneath the tents of Jacob or of Boaz, the arriva. of a bird put every thing in movement ; •o« Patriarch made the circuit of the camp at the head of his followers, armed with scythes. If the report was spread, that the )'oung of the swallows had been seen wheeling about, the whole people joyfullycommenced their harvest. These beautiful signs, while they directed tne labours of the present, had the advantage of foretelling the vicissitudes of the approaching season. If the geese and swans arrived in abundance, it was known that the winter would be snoAv. Did the redbreast begin to build its nest in January, the shepherds hoped in April for the roses of May. The marriage of a virgin on the margin of a fovmtain, was represented by the first opening of the bud of the rose ; and the death of the aged, who usual- ly drop off' in autumn, by the falling of leaves, or the maturity of the harA-ests. While the philosopher, abridging or elongating the year, extended the Avinter over the A^erdure of spring, the peasant felt no alarm that the astronomer, Avho came Xo him from heaven, would be wrong in his calculatiohs. He knew that the nightingale Avould not take the season of hoar frost for that of floAvers, or make the groves resound at the winter solstice Avith the songs of summer. Thus, the cares, the joys, the pleasures of the rural life were determined, not by the uncertain calendar of the learned, but the infallible signs of Him AAdio traced his path to the sun. That sovereign regulator .vshed himself that the rites of his Avorship should be determined by the epochs fixed by his Avorks ; and in those days of innocence, according to the seasons and the labours they required, it was the A^oice of the zephyr or of the tempest, of the eagle or the dove, which called the Avorshipper to the temple of his Creator."— L 171. Let no one exclaim, what have these descrip- tions to do with the spirit of Christianity? Gray thought otherAvise, when he Avrote the sublime lines on visiting the Grande Char- treuse. Buchanan thought otherwise, Avhen, in his exquisite Ode to May, he supposed the first zephyrs of spring to blow over the islands of the just. The work of Chateaubriand, it is to be recollected, is not merely an exposition of the doctrines, spirit, or precepts of Chris- tianity ; it is intended expressly to allure, by the charms which it exhibits, the man of the AA'orld, an unbelieving and volatile generation, to the feelings of devotion ; it is meant to com- bine all that IS delightful or lovely in the Avorks of nature, with all that is sublime or elevating in the revelations of religion. In his eloquent pages, therefore, Ave find iTnited the Natural Theology of Paley, the Contemplations of Taylor, and the Analogy of Butler ; and if the theologians will look in vain for the weighty arguments by which the English divines haA'e established the foundation of their faith, men of ordinary education Avill find even more to entrance and subdue their minds. Among the proofs of the immortality of the soul, our author, with all others Avho have thought upon the subject, classes the obvious disproportion betAveen the desires and capacity of the soul, and the limits of its acquisitions and enjoyments in this world. In the follow- ing passage this argument is placed in its just colours CHATEAUBRIAND 19 '• if it is impossible to deny, that the hope of man continues to the edge of the grave — if it be true, that the advantages of this world, so far frona satisfying our wishes, tend only to augment the want which the soul experiences, and dig deeper the abyss which it contains within itself, we must conclude that there is something beyond the limits of time. 'Vin- cula hujus mundi, says St. Augustin, 'asperi- tatem habent veram, jucunditatcm falsam, certum dolorem, incertam voluptatem, durum laborem, timidam quietem, rem plenara mise- rifc, spem bealitudinis inanem.' Far from lamenting that the desire for felicity has been planted in this world, and its ultimate gratifica- tion only in another, let us discern in that only an additional proof of the goodness of God. Since sooner or later we must quit this world. Providence has placed beyond its limits a charm, which is felt as an attraction to dimin- ish the terrors of the tomb ; as a kind mother, when wishing to make her infant cross a bar- rier, places some agreeable object on the other side."— I. 210. "Finally, there is another proof of the im- mortality of the soul, which has not been suf- ficiently insisted on, and that is the universal veneration of mankind for the tomb. There, by an invincible charm, life is attached to death, there the human race declares itself superior to the rest of creation, and proclaims aloud its lofty destinies. What animal regards its coffin, or disquiets itself about the ashes of its fathers 1 Which one has any regard for the bones of its father, or even knows its father, after the first necessities of infancy arc passed 1 Whence comes then the all-power- ful idea which we entertain of death 1 Do a few grains of dust merit so much considera- tion 1 No ; without doubt we respect the bones of our fathers, because an inward voice tells us that all is not lost witli them ; and that is the voice which has everywhere conse- crated the funeral service throughout the world ; all are equally persuaded that the sleep is not eternal, even in the tomb, and that death itself is but a glorious transfiguration." — I. 217. To the objection, that if the idea of God is innate, it must appear in children without any education, which is not generally the case, Chateaubriand replies: " God being a spirit, and it being impossible that he should be understood but by a spirit, an infant, in whom the powers of thought are not as yet developed, cannot form a proper conception of the Supreme Being. We must not expect from the heart its noblest function, whon the marvellous fabric is as yet in the hands of its Creator. "Besides, there seems reason to believe that a child has, at least, a sort of instinct of its Creator; witness only its lilile reveries, its disquietudes, its fears in the night, its disposi- tion to raise its eyes to heaven. An infant joins together its little hands and repeats after its mother a prayer to the good God. Why does that little angel lisp with so much love and purity the name of the Supreme Being, if it has no inward consciousness of its existence in its heart 1 "Behold that new-born infant, which the nurse still carries under her arms. What has it done to give so much joy to that old man, to that man in the prune of life, to that woman ' Two or three syllables half-formed, which na one rightly understands, and instantly three reasonable creatures are transported with de« light, from the grandfather, to whom all that life contains is known, to the young mother, to whom the greater part of it is as yet un* revealed. Who has put that power into the word of man? How does it happen that the sound of a human voice subjugates so instan- taneously the human heart 1 What subjugates you is something allied to a mystery, which depends on causes more elevated than the in terest, how strong soever, Avhich you take in that infant: something tells you that these in- articulate words ai-e the first openings of an immortal soul." — I. 224. There is a subject on wiiich human genius can hardly dare to touch, the future felicity of the just. Our author thus treats this delicate subject : "The purest of sentiments in this world is admiration ; but every earthly admiration is mingled with weakness, either in the object i+ admires, or in that admiring. Imagine, then, a perfect being, which perceives at once all that is, and has, and will be ; suppose that soul exempt from envy and all the weaknesses of life, incorruptible, indefatigable, unalterable ; conceive it contemplating without ceasing the Most High, discovering incessantly new per- fections ; feeling existence only from the re- newed sentiment of that admiration ; conceive God as the sovereign beauty, the universal principle of love ; figure all the attachments of earth blending in that abyss of feeling, without ceasing to love the objects of affection on this earth; imagine, finally, that the inmate of heaven has the conviction that this felicity is never to end, and you will have an idea, feeble and imperfect indeed, of the felicity of the just. They are plunged in this abyss of delight, as in an ocean from which they can- not emerge: thej'- wish nothing; they have every thing, though desiring nothing; an eternal youth, a felicity without end; a glory divine is expressed in their countenances ; a sweet, noble, and majestic joy; it is a sublime feeling of truth and virtue Avhich transports them ; at every instant they experience the same rapture as a mother who regains a be- loved child whon^ she believed lost; and that exquisite joy, too fleeting on earth, is there prolonged through the ages of eternity. — I. 211, We intended to have gone through in this paper the whole Genie dc Cliristianisme, and we have only concluded the first volume, so prolific of beauty are its pages. We make no ajjology for the length of the quotations, which have so much exteiuled tiie iimilsof lliisarticle; any observations would be inexcusable which should abridge passages of such transcendent beauty. "The Itineraire de Paris a Jerusab-m." is an account of the author's journey in 1806, from Paris to Greece, Constai\tinople, Palc?-- tine, Egypt and Carthage. This work is not so much a book of travels as memoirs of the feelings and impressions of the author during 20 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. a journey over tne shores of the Mediterranean ; the cradle, as Dr. Johnson observed, of all that dignifies and has blest human nature, of our ■ laws, our religion, and our civilization. It may readily be anticipated that the observa- tions of such a man, in such scenes, must con- tain much that is interesting and delightful: our readers may prepare themselves for a high gratification ; it is seldom that they have such an intellectual feast laid before them. We have translated the passages, both because there is no English version with which we are acquainted of this work, and because the trans- lations which usually appear of French authors are executed in so slovenly a style. On his first night amidst the ruins of Sparta, our author gives the following interesting ac- count: — " After supper Joseph brought me my saddle, which usually served for my pillow. I wrap- ped myself in my cloak, and slept on the banks of the Eurotas under a laurel. The night was so clear and serene, that the milky way formed a resplendent arch, reflected in the waters of the river, and by the light of which I could read. I slept with my eyes turned towards the heavens, and with the constellation of the Swan of Leda directly above my head. Even at this distance of time I recollect the pleasure I experienced in sleeping thus in the woods of America, and still more in awakening in the middle of the night. I there heard the sound of the wind rustling through those pro- found solitudes, the cry of the stag and the deer, the fall of a distant cataract, while the fire at my feet, half-extinguished, reddened from below the foliage of the forest. " I even experienced a pleasure from the voice of the Iroquois, when he uttered his cry in the midst of the untrodden woods, and by the light of the stars, amidst the silence of nature, pro- claimed his unfettered freedom. Emotions such as these please at twenty years of age, because life is then so full of vigour that it sutfices as it were for itself, and because there is some- thing in early youth which incessantly urges towards the mysterious and the unknown ; ipsi slbi somnia Jinguitt ; but in a more mature age the mind reverts to more imperishable emotions; it inclines, most of all, to the re- collections and the examples of history. I would still sleep willingly on the banks of the Eurotas and the Jordan, if the shades of the three hun- dred Spartans, or of the twelve sons of Jacob, were to visit my dreams ; but I would no longer set out to visit lands which have never been explored by the plough. I now feel the desire for those old deserts which shroud the walls of Babylon or the legions of Pharsalia; fields of which the farrows are engraven on human thought, and where I may find man as I am, the blood, the tears, and the labours of man." — L 86, 87. From Laconia our author directed his steps by the isthmus of Corinth to Athens. Of his first feelings in the ancient cradle of taste and genius he gives the following beautiful de- Kcription: — " Overwhelmed with fatigue, I slept for some iime without interruption, when I was at length awakened by the sound of Turkish music, proceeding from the summits of the Propylenic At the same moment a Mussulman priest from one of the mosques called the faithful to pray in the city of Minerva. I cannot describe what I felt at the sound; that Iman had no need to remind one of the lapse of time; his voice alone in these scenes announced the revolution of ages. " This fluctuation in human affairs is the more remarkable from the contrast which it affords to the unchangeableness of nature. As if to insult the instability of human afiairs, the animals and the birds experience no change in their empires, nor alterations in their habits. I saw, when sitting on the hill of the Muses, the storks form themselves into a wedge, and wing their flight towai'ds the shores of Africa. For two thousanv.' years they have made the same voyage — they have remained free and happy in the city of Solon, as in that of the chief of the black eunuchs. From .the height of their nests, which the revolutions below have not been able to reach, they have seen the races of men disappear ; while impious generations have arisen on the tombs of their religious parents, the young stork has never ceased to nourish its aged parent. I involun- tarily fell into these reflections, for the stork is the friend of the traveller : ' it knows the seasons of heaven.' These birds were fre- quently my companions in the sblitudes of America : I have often seen them perched on the wigwams of the savage ; and when I saw them rise from another species of desert, from the ruins of the Parthenon, I could not avoid feeling a companion in the desolation of empires. " The first thing which strikes a traveller in the monuments of Athens, is their lovely colour. In our climate, where the heavens are charged with smoke and rain, the whitest stone soon becomes tinged with black and green. It is not thus with the atmosphere of the city of Theseus. The clear sky and bril- liant sun of Greece have shed over the marble of Paros and Pentilicus a golden hue, com- parable only to the finest and most fleeting tints of autumn. " Before I saw these splendid remains I had fallen into the ordinary error concorning them. I conceived they were perfect in their details, but that they wanted grandeur. But the first glance at the originals is sufiicient to show that the genius of the architects has supplied in the magnitude of proportion what was wanting in size; and Athens is accordingly filled with stupendous edifices. The Athenians, a people far from rich, few in number, have succeeded in moving gigantic masses ; the blocks of stone in the Pnyx and the Propyleum are literally quarters of rock. The slabs which stretch from pillar to pillar are of enormous dimensions : the columns of the Temple of Jupiter 01}^mpius are above sixtj' feet in height, and the walls of Athens, including those winch stretched to the Pira3us, extended over nine leagues, and were so broad that two chariots could drive on them abreast. The Romans never erected more extensive fortifications. " By what strange fatality has it happened that the chefs d'oeuvre of antiquit}', which the moderns go so far to admire, have ewed theii CHATEAUBRIAND. 21 destruction chiefly to the moderns themselves t The Parthenon Avas entire in 1687; the Chris- tians at first converted it into a cluirch, and the Turks into a mosque. The "Venetians, in the middle of the light of the seventeenth century, bombarded the Acropolis with red-liot sliot; a shell fell on the Parthenon, pierced the roof, communicated to a few barrels of powder, and blew into the air great part of the edifice, which did less honour to the gods of antiquity than the genius of man. No sooner was the town captured, than Morosini, in the design of embellishing Venice with its spoils, took down the statues from the front of the Temple ; and another modern has completed, from love for the arts, that whicii the Venetian had begun. The invention of fii'C-arms has been fatal to the monuments of antiquity. Had the bar- barians been acquainted with the use of gun- powder, not a Greek or Roman edifice would have survived their invasion; they would ha^•e blown up even the Pyramids in the search for hidden treasures. One year of war in our times will destroy more than a century of combats among the ancients. Every thing among the moderns seems opposed to the per- fectionof art; their country, theirraanners, their dress; even their discoveries." — 1. 136, 145. These observations are perfectly well found- ed. No one can have visited the Grecian monu- ments on the shores of the Mediterranean, without perceiving that they were thoroughly masters of an element of grandeur, hitherto but little understood among the moderns, that arising from gigantic masses of stone. The feeling of sublimity which they produce is in- describable : it equals that of Gothic edifices of a thousand times the size. Every traveller must have felt this upon looking at the im- mense masses which rise in solitary magnifi- cence on the plains at Stonehenge. The great block in the tomb of Agamemnon at Argos ; those in the Cyclopean Walls of Volterra, and in the ruins of Agrigentum in Sicily, strike the beholder with a degree of astonishment bordering on awe. To have moved such enormous masses seems the work of a race of mortals superior in thought and power to this degenerate age; it is impossible, in visiting them, to avoid the feeling that you arc beholding the work of giants. It is to this cause, we are persuaded, that the extraordina- ry impression produced by the pyramids, and all the works of the Cyclopean age in archi- tecture, is to be ascribed; and as it is an element of sublimity within the reach of all who have considerable funds at their com- mand, it is earnestly to be hoped that it will not be overlooked by our architects. fStrangc that so powerful an ingredient in the sublime should iiave been lost sight of in proportion to the ability of the age to produce it, and that the monuments raised in the infancy of the mechanical art, shou'.d still be those in which alone it is to be seen to perfection ! We willingly translate the description of the xinrivalled scene viewed from the Acropolis by the same poetical hand ; a description so glowing, and yet so true, that it almost recalls, afier the lapse of years, the fading tints of the oric'inal on the mcmorv. "To understand the view from the Acropolis you must figure to yourself all the plain at its loot ; bare and clothed in a dusky heath, inter- sected here and there by woods of olives, squares of barley, and ridges of vines ; you must conceive the heads of columns, and the ends of ancient ruins, emerging from the midsi of that cultivation ; Albanian women washing their clothes at the fountain or the scanty streams ; peasants leading their asses, laden with provisions, into the modern city : those ruins so celebrated, those isles, those seas, whose names are engraven on the memory, illumined by a resplendent light. I have seen from the rock of the Acropolis the sun rise between the two summits of Mount Ilymettus : the ravens, which nestle round the citadel, but never fly over its summit, floating in the air beneath, their glossy wings reflecting the rosy lints of the morning: columns of light smoke ascending from the villages on the sides of the neighbouring mountains marked the colonies of bees on the far-famed Hymettus ; and the ruins of the Parthenon w-ere illuminated by the finest tints of pink and violet. The sculp- tures of Phidias, struck by a horizontal ray of gold, seemed to start from their marbled bed by the depth and mobility of their shadows : in the distance, the sea and the Pirteus were resplendent with light, while on the verge of the western horizon, the citadel of Corinth, glittering in the rays of the rising sun, shone like a rock of purple and fire." — I. 149. These are the colours of poetry ; but beside this brilliant passage of French description, we willingly place the equally correct and still more thrilling lines of our own poet. " Slow sinks mori! beauteous ere liis race be run Aloiij; IMorca's hills the setting sun, Not as in northern clime obscurely briaht, But one unclouded blaze of livini; liuht; O'er the hushed deep the yellow beams he throws, Gilds the creen wave that trenibU's as it glows; On old /1\L'ina's rod; ;ind Idra's isle. The (;o(l of Gladness sheds his partina; smile ; O'er his own regions lingerim; loves to shine, Though there bis altars are no more divine ; Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss Thy glorious gulf, unconciuer'd Salaiuis! Their azure arches through the \ous expanse, More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance, And tenderesl lints, along their suiumils driven, Mark his gay course and own the hues of heaven. Till, darkly shaded from the land ami deep, liehind his Delidiian clilf lie sinks to sleep." The columns of the temple of Jupiter Olym- pius produced the same eirects on the enthu- siastic mind of Chateaubriand as they do on every traveller: — But he has added some re- flections highly descriptive of the peculiar turn of his mind. " At length we came to the great isolated columns jilaced in the quarter which is called the city of Adrian. On a portion of the archi- trave which unites two of the columns, is to be seen a piece of masonry, once the abode of a hermit. It is impossible to conceive how that buililing, ^hich is still entire, coubl have been erected on the summit of one of these prodigious coltynns, whose height is above sixty feet. Thus this vast temple, at which the Athenians toiled for seven centuries, which all the kings of Asia laboured to finish, which Adrian, the ruler of the world, had first the glory to complete, has sunk under the hand of S2 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. time, and the cell of a hermit has remained undecayed on its ruins. A miserable cabin is borne aloft on two columns of marble, as if fortune had ^wsked to exhibit, on that magni- ficent pedestal, a monument of its triumph and its caprice. "These columns, though twenty feet higher than those of the Parthenon, are far from pos- sessing their beaut)^ The degeneracy of taste is apparent in their construction ; but isolated and dispersed as they are, on a naked and desert plain, their effect is imposing in the highest degree. I stopped at their feet to hear the wind whistle through the Corinthian fofiage on their summits : like the solitary palms Avhich rise here and there amidst the ruins of Alexandria. When the Turks are threatened b}' any calamity, they bring a lamb into this place, and constrain it to bleat, with its face turned to heaven. Being unable to find the voice of innocence among men, they have re- course to the new-born lamb to mitigate the anger of heaven." — I. 152, 153. He followed the footsteps of Chandler along the Long Walls to the Pirceus, and found that profound solitude in that once busy and ani- mated scene, which is felt to be so impressive by every traveller. " If Chandler was astonished at the solitude of the Pira2us, I can safely assert that I was not less astonished than he. We had made the circuit of that desert shore ; three harbours had met our eyes, and in all that space we had not seen a single vessel ! The only spectacle to be seen was the ruins and the rocks on the shore — the only sounds that could be heard were the cry of the seafowl, and the murmur of the wave, which, breaking on the tomb of Themistocles, drew forth a perpetual sigh from the abode of eternal silence. Borne awaj' by the sea, the ashes of the conqueror of Xerxes repose beneath the waves, side by side with the bones of the Persians. In vain I sought the Temple of Venus, the .bng gallei}^ and the S3'mbolical statue which represented the Athenian people; the image of that implacable democracy was for ever fallen, beside the walls, where the exiled citizens came to im- plore a return to their country. Instead of those superb arsenals, of those Agor^ resound- ing with the voice of the sailors ; of those edifices which rivalled the beauty of the city of Rhodes, I saw nothing but a ruined convent and a solitary magazine. A single Turkish sentinel is perpetually seated on the coast ; months and years revolve without a bark pre- senting itself to his sight. Such is the deplora- ble state into which these ports, once so famous, have now fallen — Who have over- turned so many monuments of gods and meni The hidden power which overthrows every thing, and is itself subject to the Unknown God whose altar St. Paul beheld at Phalera." ~I. 157, 158. The fruitful theme of the decay of Greece has caWed forth many of the finest apostrophes }■>( our moralists and poets. On this subject Chateaubriand offers the following striking observations : — " One would imagine that Greece itself an- nouEced, by its mourning, the misfortunes of its children. In general, the country is uncul- tivated, the soil bare, re ugh, savage, of abrowa and withered aspect. There are no rivers, properly so called, but little streams and tor- rents, which become dry in summer. No farm-houses are to be seen on the farms, no labourers, no chariots, no oxen, or horses of agriculture. Nothing can be figured so melan- choly as to see the track of a modern Avheel, where you can still trace in the worn parts of the rock the track of ancient wheels. Coast along that shore, bordered by a sea hardly more desolate — place on the summit of a rock a ruined tower, an abandoned convent — figure a minaret rising up in the midst of the solitude as a badge of slaveiy — a solitary flock feeding on a cape, surmounted by ruined columns — the turban of a Turk scaring the few goats which browze on the hills, and you will obtain a just idea of modern Greece. " On the eve of leaving Greece, at the Cape of Sunium, I did not abandon myself alone to the romantic ideas which the beauty of the scene Avas fitted to inspire. I retraced in my mind the history of that country ; I strove to discover in the ancient prosperity of Athens and Sparta the cause of their present misfor- tunes, and in their present situation the germ of future glory. The breaking of the sea, which insensibly increased against the rocks at the foot of the Cape, at length reminded me that the wind had risen, and that it was time to resume my voyage. We descended to the vessel, and found the sailors already prepared for our departure. We pushed out to sea, and the breeze, Avhich blew fresh from the land, bore us rapidly towards Zea. As we receded from the shore, the columns of Sunium rose more beautiful above the waves : their pure white appeared well defined in the dark azure of the distant sky. We were already far from the Cape ; bvU we still heard the murmur of the waves, which broke on the cliffs at its foot, the whistle of the winds through its solitary pillars, and the cry of the sea-birds which wheel round the stormy promontory : they were the last sounds which I heard on the shores of Greece."— 1. 196. " The Greeks did not excel less in the choice of the site of their edifices than in the forms and proportions. The greater part of the pro- montories of Peloponnesus, Attica, and Ionia, and the Islands of the Archipelago, are marked by temples, trophies, or tombs. These monu- ments, surrounded as they generally are with woods and rocks, beheld in all the changes of light and shadow, sometimes in the midst of clouds and lightning, sometimes by the light of the moon, sometimes gilded by the rising sun, sometimes flaming in his setting beams, throw an indescribable charm over the shores of Greece. The earth, thus decorated, re- sembles the old Cybele, who, crowned and seated on the shore, commanded her son Neptune to spread the waves berjeath her feet. " Christianit}', to which we owe the sole architecture in unison with our manners, has also taught how to place our true monuments : our chapels, our abbeys, our monasteries, are dispersed on the summits of hills — not .that, the CHATEAUBRIAND. 3» choice of the site was always the work of the architect, but that an art which is in unison with the feelin;;s of the people, seldom errs far ! in what is really beautiful. Observe, on the other hand, how wretchedly almost all our edifices copied from the antique are placed. Not one of the heights around Paris is orna- mented with any of the splendid edifices with which the city is filled. The modern Greek edifices resemble the corrupted language which they speak at Sparta and Athens ; it is in vain to maintain that it is the language of Homer and Plato; a mixture of uncouth words, and of foreign constructions, betrays at every in- stant the invasion of the barbarians. "To the loveliest sunset in nature, suc- ceeded a serene night. The firmament, re- flected in the waves, seemed to sleep in the midst of the sea. The evening star, my faith- ful companion in my journe}'', was ready to sink beneath the horizon; its place could only be distinguished by the rays of light which it occasionally shed upon the water, like a dying taper in the distance. At intervals, the per- fumed breeze from the islands which we pass- ed entranced the senses, and agitated on the surface of the ocean the glassy image of the heavens."— I. 182, 183. The appearance of morning in the sea of Marmora is described in not less glowing colours. "At four in the morning we n'eighed an- chor, and as the wind was fair, we found our- selves in less than an hour at the extremity of the waters of the river. The scene was worthy of being described. On the right, Aurora rose above the headlands of Asia; on the left, was extended the sea of Marmora; the heavens in the east were of a fiery red, which grew paler in proportion as the morning advanced; the morning star still shone in that empurpled light; and above it you could barely descry the pale circle of the moon. The picture changed while I still contemplated it; soon a blended glory of rays of rose and gold, diverg- ing from a common centre, mounted to the zenith; these columns were efiaced, revived, and effaced anew, until the .sun rose above the horizon, and confounded all the lesser shades in one universal blaze of light." — I. 230. His journey into the Holy Land awakened a new and not less interesting train of ideas, throughout the whole of which we recognise (he peculiar featuresofM.de Chateaubriand's mind : a strong and poetical sense of the beauties of nature, a memory fraught with historical recollections; a deep sense of reli- gion, illustrated, however, rather as it affects the imagination and the passions, than the judgment. It is a mere chimera to sujipose that such aids are to be rejected by the friends of Christianity, or that truth may with safety discard (he aid of fancy, either in subduing the passions or afl'ccting the heart. On the contrary, every day's experience must con- vince us, that for one who can understand an argument, hundreds can enjoy a romance; and that truth, to affect multitudes, must con- descend to wear the garb of fancy. It is no doubt of vast importance that works should exist in which the truths of religion are un- 1 folded with lucid precision, and its principles defined with the force of reason: but it is at least of equal moment, that others should be found in which the graces of eloquence and the fervour of enthusiasm form an attraction to those who are insensible to graver considera'' tions ; where the reader is tempted to follow a path which he finds only strewed with flowers, and he unconsciously inhales the breath of eternal life. Cosi all Ejtro fanciul porciamo aspcrsi l)i soave licor eli orsi dtO vaso, \ • ,^ Siirclii ainari iiiKaniiato iiitanto ei\()6ve, *J E (lal iiigaiino sua vita riceve. V' ^ - " On Hearing the coast of Judea, the first visitors we received were three sv/allows. They were perhaps on their way from France, and pursuing their course to Syria. I was strongly templed to ask them what news they brouglit from that paternal roof Avhich I had so long quitted. I recollect that in years of in- fancy, I spent entire hours in watching with an indescribable pleasure the course of swal- lows in autumn, when assembling in crowds previous to their annual migration : a secret instinct told me that I too should be a travel- ler. They assembled in the end of autumn around a great fishpond ; there, amidst a thou- sand evolutions and flights in air, they seemed to try their wings, and prepare for their long pilgrimage. Whence is it that of all the re- collections in existence, we prefer those which are connected with our cradle 1 The illusions of self-love, the pleasures of youth, do not recur with the same charm to the memory ; we find in them, on the contrary, frequent bit- terness and pain; but the slightest circum stances revive in the heart the recollections of infancy, and always with a fresh charm. On the shores of the lakes in America, in an unknown desert, which was sublime only from the effect of solitude, a swallow has frequently recalled to my recollection the first years of my life ; as here on the coast of Syria they recalled them in sight of an ancient land re- sounding with the traditions of history and the voice of ages. "The air was so fresh and so balmy that all the passengers remained on deck during the night. At six in the morning I was awa- kened by a confused hum ; I opened my eyes, and saw ail the ]iilgrims crowding towards the prow of the vessel. I asked what it was? they all rejilied, ' Signor, il Carmclo.' I in- stantly rose from the plank on which I was stretched, and eagerly looked out for the sacred mountain. Every one strove to show it to me, but I could see notiiing by reason of the daz- zling of the sun, which now rose above the horizon. The moment had something in it that was august and impressive; all the pil- grims, with their chaplcts in their hands, remained in silence, watching fcu" the appear- ance of the Holy Land; the captain prayed aloud, and not a sound was to be heard but that prayer and the rush of the vessel, as it ploughed with a fair wind through (he azure sea. From time lo time the cry arose, from those in elevated parts of the vessel, that they saw Mount Carmel, and at length I myself perceived it like a roond globe under the rayi M ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. of the sun. I then fell on my knees, after the manntT of thf L;itiii piljjrims. My first im- rression was ni>l the kind of agitation 'whicii experienced on approaching the coast of Greece, hut the sight of the cradle of the Israel- ites, and of the country of Christ, filled me uiili awe and veneration. I was about to ill -i-cnd on liic land of miracles — on the birth- place of the sublimest poetry that has ever appeared on earth^m tlie spot where, speak- ing only as it has aflocted human history, the most wonderful event has occurred which ever changed the destinies of the species. I was about to visit the scenes wliich iiad been seen before me by Godfrey of Bouillon, Ray- mond of Toulouse, Tancred the Brave, Richard CcTur dc Lion, and Saint liouis. whose virtues even the infidels respected. How could an obscure pii-xrim like myself dare to tread a soil ennobled by such recollections!" — L 263 Nothing is more striking in the whole work than the description of the Dead Sea, and the Valley o( Jordan. He has contrived to bring the features of that extraordinary scene more completely before us than any of the numerous English travellers who have preceded or fol- lowed him on the same route. "We quitted the convent at three in the afternoon, ascended the torrent of Cedron, and at length, crossing the ravine, rejoined our route to the east. An opening in the mountain gave us a passing view of Jerusalem. I hardly recognised the city; it seemed a mass of broken rocks ; the sudden appearance of that city of desolation in the midst of the wil- derness had something in it almost terrifying. She was, in truth, the Ijueen of the Desert. "As we advanced, the aspect of the moun- tains continued constantly the same, that is, a powdery white — without shade, a tree, or even moss. At half past four, we descended from the lofty chain we had hitherto traversed, and wound along another of inferior elevation. At length we arrived at the last of the chain of heights, which close in on the west the Valley of Jordan and the Dead Sea. The sun was nearly setting ; we dismounted from our houes, and I lay down to contemplate at lei- sure the lake, the valley, and the river. " When you speak in general of a valley, you concei-ve it either cultivated or iinculii- vatcd ; if the former, it is filled with villages, corn-fields, vinej-ards, and flocks; if the latter, it presents grass or forests ; if it is watered by a river, that river has windings, and the sinu- osities or projecting points afl^rd agreeable and varied landsca])es. But here there is no- thing of the kind. Conceive two long chains of mountains running parallel from north to south, without projections, without recesses, without vegetation. The ridge on the east, called the Mountains of Arabia, is the most elevated; viewed at the distance of eight or ten leagues, it resembles a vast wall, cxtroinely similar to the Jura, as seen from the Lake of Geneva, from its form and azure tint. You can perceive neither summits nor the smallest peak-;; only here and there slight inequalities, as if the hand of the )>ainlr'r who traced the long lilts on the sky had occasionallv trembled. "The chain on the eastern side forms par* of the mountains of Judea — less elevated and more uneven than the ridge on the west: it dificrs also in its character ; it exhibits great masses of rock and sand, Avhich occasionally present all the varieties of ruined fortificaticns, armed men, and floating banners. On the side of Arabia, on the other hand, black rocks, with perpendicular flanks, spread from afar their shadows over the w,aters of the Dead Sea. The smallest bird could not find in those crevices of rock a morsel of food ; every thing announces a country which has fallen under the divine wrath; every thing inspires the horror at the incest from whence sprung Am- nion and Moab. " The valley which lies between these moun- tains resembles the bottom of a sea, from which the waves have long ago withdrawiv: banks of gravel, a dried bottom — rocks covered with salt, deserts of moving sand — here and there stunted arbutus shrubs grow with diffi- culty on that arid soil; their leaves are co- vered with the salt which had nourished their roots, M-hile their bark has the scent and taste of smoke. Instead of villages, nothing but the ruins of towers are to be seen. Through the midst of the valley flows a discoloured stream, which seems to drag its lazy course unwill- ingly towards the lake. Its course is not to be discerned by the water, but by the Avillows and shrubs which skirt its banks — the Arab conceals himself in these thickets to waylay and rob the pilgrim. "Such are the places rendered famous by the maledictions of Heaven: that river is the Jordan : that lake is the Dead Sea. It appears with a serene surface; but the guilty cities which are embosomed in its waves have poi- soned its waters. Its solitaiy abj-sses can sustain the life of no living thing; no vessel ever ploughed its bosom; — its slrores are with- out trees, without birds, without A'erdure ; its water, frightfully salt, is so heavy that the highest wind can hardly raise it. " In travelling in Judea, an extreme feelii>g of ennui frequently seizes the mind, from the sterile and monotonous aspect of the objects which are presented to the eye : but when journeying on through these pathless deserts, the expanse seems to spread out to infinity before you, the ennui disappears, and a secret terror is experienced, Avliich, far from lower- ing the soul, elevates and inflames the genius. These extraordinary scenes reveal the land desolated by miracles ;-r— that burning sun, the impetuous eagle, the barren fig-tree; all the poetry, all the pictures of Scripture are there. Every name recalls a mystery; every grotto speaks of the life to come ; every peak re-echoes the voice of a prophet. God him- self has spoken on these shores: these dried- up torrents, these cleft rocks, these tombs rent asunder, attest his resistless hand : the desert appears mute wfth terror; and you feel that it has never ventured to break silence since it heard the voice of the Eternal."— L 317. " I employed two complete hours in wan- dering on the shores of the Dead Sea, notwith standing the remonstrances of the Bedouins, who pressed me to quit that dangerous regioc. CHATEAUBRIAND. 25 I was desirous of seeing the Jordan, at the place where it discharges itself into the lake; but the Arabs refused to lead me thither, be- cause the river, at a league from its mouth, makes a detour to the left, and approaches the mountains of Arabia. It was necessary, there- fore, to direct our steps towards the curve which was nearest us. We struck our tents, and travelled for an hour and a half with ex- cessive ditiiculty, through a fine and silvery sand. We were moving towards a little wood of willows and tamarinds ; which, to my great surprise, I perceived growing in the midst of the desert. All of a sudden the Bethlemites stopped, and pointed to something at the bottom of a ravine, Avhich had not yet attracted my at- tention. Without being able to say what it was, I perceived a sort of sand rolling on through the fixed banks which surrounded it. I approached it, and saw a yellow stream which could hardly be distinguished from the sand of its two banks. It was deeply furrowed through the rocks, and with difficulty rolled on, a stream surcharged with sand : it was the Jordan. " I had seen the great rivers of America, with the pleasure which is inspired by the magnificent works of nature. I had hailed the Tiber with ardour, and sought with the same interest the Eurotas and the Cephisus ; but on none of these occasions did I expe- rience the intense emotion which I felt on ap- proaching the Jordan. Not only did that river recall the earliest antiquity, and a name ren- dered immortal in the finest poetry, but its banks were the theatre of the miracles of our religion. Judea is the only country which recalls at once the earliest recollections of man, and our first impressions of heaven ; and thence arises a mixture of feeling in the mind, which no other part of the world can produce."— I. 327, 328. The peculiar turn of his mind renders our author, in an especial manner, partial to the description of sad and solitary scenes. The following description of the Valley of Jehosha- phat is in his best style. "The Valley of Jehoshaphat has in all ages served as the burying-place to Jerusalem : you meet there, side by side, monuments of the most distant times and of the present century. The Jews still come there to die, from all the corners of the earth. A stranger sells to them, for almost its Aveight in gold, the land which contains the bones of their fathers. Solomon planted that valley: the shadow of the Temple by which it was overhung — the torrent, called after grief, which traversed it — the Psalms %vhich David there composed — the Lamenta- tions of Jeremiah, which its rocks re-echoed, render it the fitting abode of the tomb. Jesus Christ commenced his Passion in the same place : that innocent David there shed, for the expiation of our sins, those tears which the guilty David let fall for his own transgressions. Few names awaken in our minds recollections 50 solemn as the Valley of Jehoshaphat. It is «o full of mysteries, that, according to the Prophet Joel, all mankind will be assembled there before the Eternal Judge. "The aspect of this celebrated valley is desolate; the western side is bounded by a ridge of lofty rocks which support the walls of Jerusalem, above which the towers of the city appear. The eastern is formed by the Mount of Olives, and another eminence called the Mount of Scandal, from the idolatry of Solomon. These two mountains, which adjoin each other, are almost bare, and of a red and sombre hue ; on their desert side you see here and there some black and withered vineyards, some wild olives, some ploughed land, covered with hyssop, and a few ruined chapels. At the bottom of the valley, you perceive a tor rent, traversed by a single arch, which appears of great antiquity. The stones of the Jewish cemetery appear like a mass of ruins at the foot of the mountain of Scandal, under the village of Siloam. You can hardly distin- guish the buildings of the village from the ruins with which they are surrounded. Three ancient monuments are particularly conspicu- ous : those of Zachariah, Josaphat, and Ab- salom. The sadness of Jerusalem, from which no smoke ascends, and in which no sound is to be heard ; the solitude of the surrounding mountains, where not a living creature is to be seen ; the disorder of those tombs, ruined, ransacked, and half-exposed to view, would almost induce one to believe that the last trump had been heard, and that the dead were about to rise in the Valley of Jehoshaphat." — II. .34, 35. Chateaubriand, after visiting with the devo- tion of a pilgrim the Holy Sepulchre, and all the scenes of our Saviour's sufi'erings, spent a day in examining the scenes of the Crusaders' triumphs, and comparing the descriptions in Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered with the places where the events which they recorded actually occurred. He found them in general so ex- tremely exact, that it was difficult to avoid the conviction that the poet had been on the spot. He even fancied he discovered the scene of the Flight of Erminia, and the inimitable com- bat and death of Clorinda. From the Holy Land, he sailed to Egypt; and we have the following graphic picture of the approach to that cradle of art and civili- zation. " On the 20th October, at five in the morn- ing, I perceived on the green and ruffled sur- face of the water a line of foam, and beyond it a pale and still ocean. The captain clapped me on the shoulder, and said in French, 'Nilo;' and soon we entered and glided through those celebrated waters. A few palm-trees and a minaret announce the situation of Rosetta, but the town itself is invisible. These shores re- semble those of the coast of Florida; they are totally difl^ereat from those of Italy or Greece, every thing recalls the tropical regions. "At ten o'clock Ave at length discovered, beneath the palm-trees, a line of sand Avhich extended Avestward to the promontory of Aboukir, before AA'hich Ave Avere obliged ti» pass before arriving opposite to Alexandria. At five in the evening, the shore suddenly changed its aspect. The palm-trees seemed planted in lines along the shore, like the elms along the roads in France. Nature appears to take a pleasure in thus recalling the ideas of ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. jj^i!;, ,■;.,., I'n a country where that civiliza- 6on •. ami barbarity has now resumed I eleven o'clock when wc cast eiiy, and as it was some I . .mid' gel ashore. I h.-hl full y .. I Milt the conleinplatum which Uie «ri-i)e awakened. "I Nau- on my riRht several vessels, and the e«atl<\ which stands on the site of the Tower . I -. Oil my left, the horizon seemed ^ , saiid-hilis, ruins, and ohelisks; im- I . in front, extended a long wall, with ;; uses appearing above it; not a light w»s to \ye seen on shore, and not a sound came frm the city. This, nevertheless, was Alex- .T.Jii,-*. ih«« rival of .Memphis and Thebes, ;iied three millions of inhabit- ihe sanctuary of the Muses, and the abode of science amidst a benighted wor! ' " ■ • were heard the orgies of Antony and ' I. and here was Cicsar received V ill regal splendour by the Queen But in vain I listened. A fatal I nad plunged the people into a hope- 1. .;i : that talisman is the despotism which extinguishes every joy, which stifles fven the cry of suffering. And what sound cmlcl .Tfise in a city of which at least a third 1 ' ; another third of which is sur- I y by the tombs of its former in- liaSi'anls; and of which the third, which still mrvives between those dead extremities, is a spocics of breathing trunk, destitute of the i -hake off its chains in the middle I and the tomb T"— II. 163. It IS to be regretted that Chateaubriand did Dot visit Upper Egypt. His ardent and learned mind would have found ample room for elo- quent declamation, amidst the gigantic ruins of Luxor, and the iSphynx avenues of Thebes. T ■ "U of the Kile, however, pre- ^' Horn seeing even the Pyramids nearer than Grand Cairo; and when on the yrrnf. of that interesting region, he was com- t<'lli-d unwillingly to retrace his steps to the "nMirh shores. After a tempestuous voyage, al(PM- th.' cuast of Lybia, he cast anchor off 111.' imiis of Carthage; and thus describes h:N lieliugs oa surveying those venerable remains: " Frcim the summit of Byrsa, the eye em- bra< <■ 111.- ruins of Carthage, which are more r than are generally imagined; ' those of Sparta, having nothing u.-ii preserved, but embracing a considerable ftpace. I saw them in the middle of February: the ohvcii. the fiu'-trees, were already bursting " isli'-s of angelica and acan- '■' of verdure, amidst the re- iiniiis .1 iiiarbie of every colour. In the dis- taii.--. I cast my eyes over the Isthmus, the doll Me sea, the distant isles, a cerulean sea, a *'■' '"'" ;' "\ azure mountains. I saw ' Is, and aquediicis; moorish ^ "inetan hermit.iges ; gliiier- ' 'he white buildings of Tunis. Niiir..iiiided with (he most touching recollec- licms. I ih.iught alternately of Dido, Soplx.nis- ba. and the noble wife of Asilrubal ; I onlein- plaip.I !!,.• v.'vt plains where the legions of Anmbal. .Sci|>ii). and Cwsar were buried: My eyes sought for the sito of Utica. Alas ! The remains of the palace of Tiberius still remain in the island of Capri, and you search in vain at Utica for the house of Cato. Finally, the terrible Vandals, the rapid Moors, passed be- fore my recollection, Avhich terminated at last on .Saiiil Louis, expiring on that inhospitable shore. May the story of the death of that prince terminate this itinerary; fortunate to re-enter, as it were, into my country by the ancient monument of his virtues, and to cIosb at the sepulchre of that Ising of holy memory my long pilgrimage to the tombs of illustrious men."— II. 257, 258. "As long as his strength permitted, the dying monarch gave instructions to his son Philip; and when his voice failed liim, he wrt)te with a faltering hand these precepts, which no Frenchman, worthy of the name, will ever be able to read without emotion. ' My son, the first thing which I enjoin you is to love God with all your heart; fur without that no man can be saved. Beware of vio- lating his laws; rather endure the worst tor- ments, than sin against his commandments. Should he send you adversity, receive it with humility, and bless the hand which chastens you ; and believe that you have well deserved it, and that it will turn to your weal. Should he try you with prosperity, thank him with humility of heart, and be not elated by his goodness. Do justice to every one, as well the poor as the rich. Be liberal, free, and courteous to your servants, and cause them to love as well as fear you. Should any contro- versy or tumult arise, sift it to the bottom, whether the result be favourable or unfavour- able to your interests. Take care, in an espe- cial manner, that your subjects live in peace and tranquillity under your reign. Respect and preserve their privileges, such as they have received them from their ancestors, and preserve them with care and love. — And now, I give you every blessing which a father can bestow on his child; praying the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that they may defend you from all adversities ; and that we may again, after this mortal life is ended, be united before God, and adore his Majesty for ever!' " — IL 264, "The style of Chateaubriand," says Napo- leon, "is not that of Racine, it is that of a prophet; he has received from nature the sacred flame ; it breathes in all his works."* It is of no common man — being a political oppo- nent — that Napoleon would have said these words. Chateaubriand had done nothing to gain favour wiili the French Emperor; on the contrary, he irritated him by throwing up his employment and leaving his country upon the assassination of the Duke d'Enghien. In truth, nothing is more remarkable aniidst the selfish- ness of political apostasy in France, than the uniform consistence and disinterestedness of this great man's opinions. His principles, indeed, were not all the same at fifty as at lwenty-fi<'e ; we should be glad to know Avhose arc. excepting those who are so obtuse as to derive no light from the extension of know, ledge and the acquisitions of experience! • Memoirs of Napoleon, iv. 342. JNAPOLEON. 27 Change is so far from being despicable, that it is highly honourable in itself, and when it proceeds from the natural modification of the mind, from the progress of years, or the lessons of more extended experience. It becomes contemptible only when it arises on the sug- gestions of interest, or the desires of ambition. Now, Chateaubriand's changes of opinion have all been in opposition to his interest; and he has suffered at different periods of his life from his resistance to the mandates of authority, and his rejection of the calls of ambition. In early life, he was exiled from France, and shared in all the hardships of the emigrants, from his attachment to Royalist principles. At the earnest request of Napoleon, he accepted of- fice under the Imperial Government, but he relinquished it, and again became an exile upon the murder of the Duke d'Enghien. The influence of his writings was so powerful in favour of the Bourbons, at the period of the Restoration, that Louis XVIII. truly said, they were Avorth more than an army. He followed the dethroned Monarch to Ghent, and con- tributed much, by his powerful genius, to con- solidate the feeble elements of his power, after the fall of Napoleon. Called to the helm of affairs in 1824, he laboured to accommodate the temper of the monarchy to the increasing spirit of freedom in the country, and fell into disgrace with the Court, and was distrusted b}^ the Royal Family, because he strove to intro- dude those popular modifications into the ad- ministration of affairs, which might have pre- vented the revolution of July ; and finally, he has resisted all the efforts of the Citizen-King to engage his great talents in defence of the throne of the Barricades. True to his princi- ples, he has exiled himself from France, to preserve his independence ; and consecrated in a foreign land his illustrious name, to the defence of the child of:-misfortune. Chateaubriand is not only an eloquent and beautiful writer, he is also a profound scholar, and an enlightened thinker. His knowledge of history and classical literature is equalled only by his intimate acquaintance with the early annals of the church, and the fathers of the Catholic faith ; while in his speeches deli- vered in the Chamber of Peers since the restoration, will be found not only the most eloquent but the most complete and satistac tory dissertations on the political state of France during that period, which is anywhere to be met with. It is a singular circumstance, that an author of such great and varied ac- quirements, who is universally allowed by all parties in France to be their greatest living writer, should be hardly known except by name to the great body of readers in this countr)^ His greatest work, that on which his fam* will rest with posterit}-, is the "Genius of Christianity," from which such ample quota- tions have already been given. The next is the " Martyrs," a romance, in which he has introduced an exemplification of the principles of Christianity, in the early sufferings of the primitive church, and enriched the narrative by the splendid description of the scenery in Egypt, Greece, and Palestine, which he had visited during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and all the stores of learning which a life spent in classical and ecclesiastical lore could accumu- late. The last of his considerable publications is the " EtudesHistoriques," a work eminently characteristic of that superiority in historical composition, which we have allowed to the French modern writers over their contempo- raries in this country; and which, we fear, another generation, instructed when too late b}"- the blood and the tears of a Revolution, will be alone able fully to appreciate. Its ob- ject is to trace the influence of Christianity from its first spread in the Roman empire to the rise of civilization in the Western world; a field in which he goes over the ground trod by Gibbon, and demonstrates the unbounded benefits derived from religion in all the institu- tions of modern times. In this noble under- taking he has been aided, with a still more philosophical mind, though inferior fire and eloquence, by Guizot; a writer, who, equally with his illustrous rival, is as yet unknown, save by report, in this country ; but from whose joint labours is to be dated the spring of a pure and philosophical system of religious inquiry in France, and the commencement of that rev'ival of manly devotion, in which the antidote, and the only antidote, to the fanati-* cism of infidelity is to be found. napoleojnv _ The age of Napoleon is one, of the delinea- tion of which history and biography will never be weary. Such is the variety of incidents which it exhibits — the splendid and heart-stir- ring events which it records — the immortal characters which it portrays — and the import- ant consequences which have followed from it, that the interest felt in its delineation, so * Memoires de la Duchesse D' Abrantes, 2 vols. Colburn. London. The translations are executed by ourselves, as we have not seen the English version. far from diminishing, seems rather to increase with the lapse of time, and will continue through all succeeding ages, like the eras of Themistocles, Csesar, and the Crusades, to form the noblest and most favourite subjects of historical description. Numerous as have been the Memoirs which have issued from the French press during the last fifteen years, in relation to this eventful era, the public passion for information on it is still undiminished. Every new set of memoirs which is ushered into the world with an histo S8 ALISON'S MISCELLAIS'EOUS ESSAYS rical name, or any pretensions to authenticity, is cacerly read by all classes on the continent. EtiL'lisli translations generally appear in due I, 111', but thoy arc, in {general, so extremely ill executed, as lo pive no conception whatever of the spirit of the original ; and as there is not one reader out of a hundred who can read French with such facility as to make it a matter ol' pleasure, the consequence is, that jIkwc ilc-li?lurul works are still but imperfectly known to the British piiblie. Every person iiHiniately acquainted with their composition, must have perceived in what an extremely unfavourable aspect they appear in our ordi- nar>- translations ; and iu the utter ignorance Df the principles of revolution which pervades the preat bulk of the best informed classes in this countrj', compared to what obtains on the other side of the Channel, is to be found the best evidence, that the great historical works which have rccenti}' appeared on the events of the last forty years in France, have had no share whatever in the formation of public opinion in this country. The Duchess of Abrantes undertakes the work of Memoirs of her own Times with sin- gular and almost peculiar advantages. Her mother, Madame Pennon, a Corsican lady of high rank, M-as extremely intimate with the family of Napoleon. She rocked the future emperor on her knee from the day of his birth, and the intimacy of the families continued till he was removed to the command of the army of Italy, in April, 1796. The authoress herself, though then a child, recounts with admirable esprit, and all the air of truth, a number of early anecdotes of Napoleon ; and after his return from Egypt she was married to Junot, then (Jovernor of Paris, and subsequently ad- mitted as an habitual guest in the court circle of the First Consul. In her Memoirs, we have thus a picture of the private and domestic life of Napoleon from his cradle to his grave; we trace him through all the gradations of the Ecole .Militaire, the artillery service, the cam- paigns of Italy, the return from Egypt, the Consulate, and the Empire, and live with those who have filled the world with their renown, as we would do with our most intimate ac- quaintances and friends. I', has always struck us as a singular proof ♦f the practical sagacity and just discrimina- xm of character in Sir Walter Scott, that ^ough his Life of Napoleon was published acfore the Memoirs of Bouricnne, the view vhich he gives of Napoleon's character is substanlinlly the same as that drawn by his confidential secretary, his school companion, and the depositary of his inmost thoughts. This is very remarkable. The French are never weary of declaiming on the inaccuracies "f the Scottish i)ioginpher, and declare that he wrote history in romance, and romanre in history; but they have never been able to point out any serious or important error in ni< narrative. The true reproach aj^ainst Sir Walter's work is of a (lin'rrent kind, and con- s:r.rs in this, not that he has incorrectlv staled acts, but unjustly coloured opinions ;' that he nas not done justice to any of the parlies whose condicts desolated France during the revolution, and has written rather in the spini of an English observer, than one participant in the feelings of the actors in those mighty events. There is but one way in which this defect can be avoided by a native of this country, and that is, by devoting himself for a long course of years to the study of the me- moirs and historians of the Revolution, and by acquiring, by incessant converse with the writings, somewhat of the spirit which ani- mates the people of the continent. The object to be attained by this, is not to imbibe their prejudices, or become infatuated by their errors, but to know and appreciate their ideas, and do that justice to passions directed against this country, which we willingly award to those excited in its favour. The character of Napoleon has been dra-«-n by his contemporaries with more graphic power than any other conqueror in historj'^; and yet so varied and singular is the combina- tion of qualities Avhich it exhibits, and so much at variance with what we usually observe in human nature around us, that there is no man can say he has a clear perception of what it actually was : — Brave, without being chival- rous ; sometimes humane, seldom generous ; insatiable in ambition ; inexhaustible in re- sources ; without a thirst for blood, but totally indifferent to it when his interests were con- cerned ; without any fixed ideas on religion, but a strong perception of its necessity as a part of the mechanism of government; a great general with a small army, a mighty conqueror with a large one; gifted with extraordinary powers of perception, and the clearest insight into every subject connected with mankind ; without extensive information derived from study ; but the rarest aptitude for making him- self master of every subject from actual ob- servation ; ardently devoted to glorj', and yet incapable of the self-sacrifice which consti- tutes its highest honours; he exhibited a mix- ture of great and selfish qualities, such as perhaps never were before combined in any single individual. His greatest defect was the constant and systematic disregard of truth which pervaded all his thoughts. He was totally without the (Jroi'vre, or honesty, which forms the best and most dignified feature in the Gothic or German character. The maxim, ]\Iiig)ia est Veritas ct pravalcbit, never seems to have crossed his mind. His intellect was the perfection of that of the Celt or Greek ; with- out a shadow of the magnanimity and honesty which has ever characterized the Roman and Gothic races of mankind. Devoted as he was to the captivating idol of posthumous fame ; deeming, as he did, that to live in the recollec- tion and admiration of future ages " constituted the true immortality of the soul," he never seems to have been aware that truth is essen- tial to the purest and most lasting celebrity; and that the veil which artifice or flattery draws over falsehood during the prevalence of power, will be borne away with a merciless hand on its termination. In the Memoirs of Napoleon and of the Archduke Charles, the opposite character of their minds, and of the races to which they belonged, is singularly portrayed These of NAPOLEOX. 29 the latter are written with a probity, an integ- rity, and an impartiality above all praise ; he censures himself for his faults with a severity unknown to Caesar or Frederick, and touches with a light hand on those glorious successes which justly gained for him the title of Saviour of Germany. Cautious, judicious, and reason- able, his arguments convince the understand- ing, but neither kindle the imagination nor inspire the fancy. In the Memoirs of Napo- leon, on the other hand, dictated to Montholon and Gourgaud, there are to be seen in every page symptoms of the clearest and most for- cible intellect; a cmip d'ccil over every subject of matchless vigour and reach; an ardent and vehement imagination ; passions which have ripened under a southern sun, and conceptions which have shared in the luxuriant growth of tropical climates. Yet amidst all these varied excellencies, we often regret the simple bo7i- Romie of the German narrative. We admire the clearness of the division, the lucid view of every subject, the graphic power of the pic- tures, and the forcible perspicuity of the lan- guage ; but we have a total want of confidence in the veracity of the narrative. In every page we discover something suppressed or coloured, to magnify the importance of the writer in the estimation of those who study his work; and while we incessantly recur to it for striking political views, or consummate military criti- cism, we must consult works of far inferior celebrity for the smallest details in which his fame was personally concerned. We may trust him in speculations on the future destiny of nations, the march of revolutions, or the cause of military success ; but we cannot rely on the nixmbers stated to have been engaged, or the killed and wounded in a single engage- ment. The character of Napoleon has mainly rest- ed, since the publication of his work, on Bou- rienne's Memoirs. The peculiar opportunities which he had of becoming acquainted with the inmost thoughts of the First Consul, and the ability and graphic powers of his narrative, have justly secured for it an immense reputa- tion. It is probable that the private character and hidden motives of Napoleon will mainly rest v/ith posterity on that celebrated work. Every day brings out something to support its veracity; and the concurring testimony of the most intelligent of the contemporary writers tends to show, that his narrative is, upon the whole, the most faithful that has yet been pub- lished. Still it is obvious that there is a secret rankling at the bottom of Bourienne's heart against his old schoolfellow.' He could hardly be expected to forgive the extraordinary rise and matchless celebrity of one who had so long been his equal. He evinces the highest admi- ration for the Emperor, and, upon the whole, has probably done him justice ; yet, upon par- ticular points, a secret spleen is apparent; and though there seems no ground for discrediting most of his facts, yet we must not in every m- stance adopt implicitly the colouring in which he has painted them. It is quite plain that Bourienne was involved in some money trans- actions, in which Napoleon conceived that he made an improper use of the state secrets which came to his knowledge, in his officiai' situation of private secretary; and that to this cause his exile into honourable and liwrntive banishment at Hamburgh is to be ascribed. Whether this banishment was justly qr un justly inflicteJ, is iminaterial in considering the credit due to the narrative. If he was hard ly dealt M'ilh, while our opinion of his indivi- dual integrity must rise, the weight of the feelings of exasperation with which he was animated must receive a proportional augmen- tation. The Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantes are well qualified to coi'rect the bias, and sup- ply the deficiencies of those of his private se- cretary. As a woman, she had no personal rivalry with Napoleon, and could not feel her- self mortified by his transcendant success. As the wife of one of his favourite and most pros- perous generals, she had no secret reasons of animosity against the author of her husband's elevation. Her intimate acquaintance also with Napoleon, from his very infancy, and be- fore flattery or poAver had aggravated the faults of his character, renders her peculiarly weU qualified to portray its original tendency. Many new lights, accordingly, have been throwB upon the eventful period of his reign, as weh as his real character, by her Memoirs. His disposition appears in a more amiable light — his motives are of a higher kind, than froni preceding accounts; and we rise from the pe- rusal of her fascinating volumes with the im pression, which the more extensively we studj human nature we shall find to be the more correct, that men are generally more amiable at bottom than we should be inclined to ima- gine from their public conduct; that their faults are fully as much the result of the circum- stances in which they are placed, as of any inherent depravity of disposition; and that dealing gently with those who are carried along on the stream of revolution, we should reserve the weight of onr indignation for those who put the perilous torrent in motion. But leaving these general speculations, it is time to lay before our readers a few extracts from these volumes themselves, and to com- municate some portion of the pleasure which we have derived from their perusal. In doing so we shall adopt our usual plan of translating the passages ourselves ; for it is impossible to convey the least idea of the original in the circumlocutions of the ordinary London ver- sions. Of the early youth of Napoleon at the Ecole Militaire of iParis, with the management of which he was in the highest degree dissatislied, we have the following interesting account :— " When we got into the carriage. Napoleon, who had contained himself before his sister, broke out into the most violent invectives against the administration of such places as the ,Maison St. Cyr, for young ladies, and the Ecole Militaire for cadets. My uncle, who was ex- tremely quick in his temper, at last got out of all patience at the tone of cutting bitterness which appeared in his language, and told him so without reserve. Napoleon Avas then silent, for enough of good breeding still remained to make youth respect the voice of those advanced 30 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. in 3-cars. But his heart -was so full as to be almost burstinfT. Sliorilj' after he led back the conversation to the subject, and at last his ex- pressions became so olfensive that my father said to hini rudely, 'Be silent; it ill becomes you, who are educated at the expense of the kiiiL'. to speak in that manner.' ** My mother has often since told me, she was afraid Napoleon would be suffocated at these words. In an instant he became pale and inarticulate. When he recovered his voice, he exclaimed in a voice trembling' with emo- tion, ' I am not an clevc of the King, but of the State' "'A fine distinction, trul}-,' replied my un- cle. ' Whether you are an eleve of the King, or of the State, is of no consequence; besides, is not the King the State! I desire that you will not speak in such terms of your benefactor in my presence.' "'I will do nothing to displease you, M. Comncne,' replied the young man. ' Permit me oniv to add, that if I teas the ma.itcr, and had the power to alter these regulations, they should be very diflerent, and for the good of the M-hole.' " I have recounted that scene onl}' to remark these words — ' Jf J iras the master.' He has Fince become so, and all the world knows what he has done for the administration of the Ecole Militaire. I am convinced that he long enter- tained a painful sense of the humiliation he underwent at that establishment. At our ar- rival in Paris, he had been a year there, and that whole period was one of contradiction and disgust. He was not loved by his companions. Many persons who were acquainted with my father, declared to him that Napoleon's charac- ter was such as could not be rendered sociable. He was discontented with every thing, and ex- pressed his censure aloud in such decided terms, as made him pass with these old M'or- thies for a young firebrand. The result of this conduct was, that his removal info a regiment was unanimously demanded by every one at the school, and thus it advanced the period of his promotion. He obtained a sub-lieutenancy, which was stationed at Grenoble. Before his departure, he came to live some time with us: my sister was at a convent, but she came fre- quently home during the period of her vacation. I recollect that the day when he first put on his unifonn, he was as joyous as young men gene- rally arc on such an occasion: but his boots pave a singularly ridiculous appearance to his fiirure : they were of such enormous dimensions, Ihat his little thin legs quite disappeared with- in them. Everybody knows that nothing has so quick an eye for the ridiculous as childhood, so the moment that my sister and I saw him come into the room with these enormous boots, we burst out into immoderate fits of laughter. Tlien, as subsequently, he could not endure pleasantr)', when he was its object: my sister, w,ho was considerably older than I, answered, that as he had girded on his sword, he should consider himself as the Chevalier of Dames, and be highly flattered by their joking with liim " ' It is easy to see,' said Napoleon with a haii:;lity air, 'that you are a little miss just let loose from school.' "My sister was then thirteen years old: it may easily be imagined how such an expres* sion hurt her. She was of a very gentle dis- position, — but neither she nor any other wo man, whatever her age or disposition may be, can bear a direct insult to hervanit}' — that of Cccile was keenly offended at the expression of little miss escaped from school. "'And you,' said she, * are nothing but a Puss i>- Boots.' " Everyone burst out a laughing: the stroke had told most effectually- I cannot describe the wrath of Napoleon ; he answered nothing, and it was as well he did not. My mothe- thought the epithet so well applied, that she laughed with all her heart. Napoleon, though little accustomed at that time to the usage of the world, had a mind too fine, too strong an instinctive perception, not to see that it was necessary to be silent when his adversary Avas a woman, and personalities were dealt in: whatever her age was, she was entitled to re- spect. At least, such was then the code of po- liteness in those Avho dined at table. Now that utility and personal interest alone are the order of the da)% the consumption of time in such pieces of politeness is complained of: and every one grudges the sacrifices necessary to carry into the world his little contingent of so- ciability. " Bonaparte, though grievously piqued at the unfortunate epithet applied to him by my sister, affected to disregard it, and began to laugh like the rest; and to prove that he bore her no ill will on that account, he bought a little present, on which was engraved a Puss in Boots, running before the carriage of the Marquis of Carabu-s. This present cost him a good deal, which assorted ill with the strait- ened state of his finances. He added a beau- tiful edition of 'Puss in Boots,' for my sister, telling her that it was a So?(i-cniV which he beg- ged her to keep for his sake. " ' The storj'-book,' said my mother, ' is too much : if there had only been the engraving, it was all well; but the book for Cecile, shows you were piqued against her.' " He gave his word to the contrary. But I still think with my mother, that he Avas piqued, and bitter!}^ so : the whole stor)'Avas of no small service to me at a future time, as Avill ajipear in tiie sequel to these memoirs." — I. 52, 53. Several interesting anecdotes are preserved of the Reign of Terror, singularly characteris- tic of the horrors of that eventful period. The following picture is evidently drawn from the life :— " On the following day, my brother Albert was obliged to remain a considerable time at home, to put in order the papers which my father had directed to be burnt. He went out at three o'clock to see us: he found on the road groups of men in a state of horrible and bloody drunkenness. Many Avere naked down to the Avaist; their arms, their breasts bathed in blood. At the end of their pikes, they bore fragments of clothes and bloody remnants: their looks Avere haggard; their eye? inflamed. As he ad- vanced, these groups became more frequent and hideous. My brother, mortally alarmed as to our fate, and determined at all hazards NAPOIEON. 31 to rejoin us, pushed on his horse along the Boulevard where he then was, and arrived in front of the Palace Beauraarchais. There he was arrested by an immense crowd, composed of the same naked and bloody men, but with an expression of countenance altogether infer- nal. They set up hideous cries : they sung, they danced ; the Saturnalia of Hell were be- fore him. No sooner did they see the cabriolet of Albert, than they raised still louder yells : an aristocrat ! an aristocrat ! and in a moment the cabriolet was surrounded by a raging mul- titude, in the midst of which an object was elevated and presented to his view. Troubled as the sight of my brother was, he could dis- tinguish long white hair, clotted with blood, and a face beautiful even in death. The figure is brought nearer, and its lips placed on his. The unliappy wretch set up a frightful cry. He knew the head : it was that of the Princess Lamballe. "The coachman whipped the horse with all his strength ; and the generous animal, with that aversion for blood which characterizes its race, rushed from that spectacle of horror with redoubled speed. The frightful trophy was overturned, with the cannibals who bore it, by the wheels of the carriage, and a thousand imprecations followed my brother, who lay stretched out insensible in the bottom of the cabriolet. " Serious consequences resulted to my bro- ther from that scene of horror. He Avas car- ried to a physician, where he was soon taken seriously ill of a burning fever. Inhis delirium, the frightful figure was ever present to his ima- ^'nation. He never ceased, for days together, to see that livid head and those fair tresses bathed in blood. For years after, he could not recall the recollection of that horrible event without falling into a swoon, nor think of those days of wo without the most vivid emotion. " A singular circumstance concluded this tale of horror. My brother, in 1802, when Commissary General of Police at Marseilles, received secret instructions to watch, -with peculiar care, over a man named Raymonet, but whose real name was different. He lived in a small cottage on the banks of the sea ; ap- peared in comfortable circumstance?, but had no relation nor friend ; he lived alcne in his solitary cabin, and received every m;rninghis provisions from an old woman, who brought them to his gate. The secret instructions of the police revealed the fact, that this person had been one of the principal assassins at the Abbaye and La Force, in September, 1793, and was in an especial manner noted as the most cruel of the assassins of the Princess Lam- balle. "One morning my brother received intelli- gence that this man was at the point of death"; and, gracious God! what a death! For three days he had endured all the torments of hell. The accident which had befallen him M-as per- fectly natural in its origin, but it had made him suffer the most excruciating pains. He was alone in his habitation; he was obliged to drag himself to the nearest surgeon to obtain assist- ance, but it was too late : an operation was im- possible, and would not even have assuaged the pains of the dying wretcn. He refused alike religious succour and words of consola- tion. His deathbed was a chair of torture in- comparably more agonizing than the martyr* dom of a Christian. He died with blasphemies in his mouth, like the Reprobate in Dante's Inferno."— L 95. The French, who have gone through the Revolution, frequently complain that there arc no descriptions given in any historical works which convey the least idea of the Rcign of Terror; so infinitely did the reality of that dreadful pei'iod exceed all that description can convey of the terrible. There might, however, we are persuaded, be extracted from the con- temporary Memoirs (for in no other quartei can the materials be found) a picture of that memorable era, which would exceed all that Shakspeare or Dante had figured of human atrocity, and take its place beside the plague in Thucydides, and the Annals of Tacitus, as a lasting beacon to the human race, of the un- heard of horrors following in the train of de- mocratic ascendancy. One of the most curious parts of the Duch- ess's work is that which relates to the arrest of Napoleon after the fall of Robespierre, in consequence of the suspicions that attached to him, from his mission to Genoa with the bro- ther of that tyrant. It appears, that whatever he may have become afterwards, Napoleon was at that period an ardent republican: not pro- bably because the principles of democracy were suited to his inclinations, but because he found in the favour of that faction, then the ruling power in France, the only means of gra- tifying his ambition. Salicetti, one of the de- puties from Corsica, occasioned his arrest after the fall of Robespierre, and he was actually a few days in custody. Subsequently, Salicetti himself was denounced by the Convention, and concealed in the house of Madame Pennon, mother to the Duchess of Abrantes. The whole details which follow this event are highly inte- resting; and as theyaiford one of the few really generous traits of Napoleon's character, we willingly give them a place. " The retreat of Salicetti in our house was admirably contrived. His little cabinet was so stuffed with cushions and tapestry, that the smallest sound could not be heard. No one could have imagined where he was concealed. " On the following morning at eleven o'clock, Napoleon arrived. He was dressed in his usual costume ; a gray great-coat buttoned up to the throat, — a black neckcloth, — round hat, which came down over the eyes. To say the truth, at that period no one was elegantly dressed, and the personal appearance of Napoleon did not appear so singular as it now does, upon looking back to the period. He had in his hand a bouquet of violets, which he presented to my mother. That piece of gallantry was so unusual in him, that we immediately began to laugh. " It appears,' said he, ' I am not an fan at my new duties of Cavaliere Servente.' Then changing the subject, he added, ' Well, Madame Permon, Salicetti has, in his turn, reaped the bitter fruits of arrest. They must be the more difficult to swallow, that he ami his associates have planted the trees c n which 32 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. ihey Rfow.' ' What !* said my mother, with an air of .surprise, and making asitjn to me at the same Umo lo .^Init the door, ' is Salicctti arrest- ed !' • l)o you not know,' replied Napoleon, « ih ■ tre-'I was yesterday decreed at the A- I thoufiht you knew it so well, that h<- was concealid in your house.' ' In my houso !' replied my mother, with a well-feigned air of surprise ; ' Napoleon, my dear child, you are mad! In my house! That implies that I have one, which unfortunately is not the case. My dear General, I heg you will not repeat »uch nonsense. What have I done to entitle you thus to sport with me as if I were deranged, for I can call it nothing else V "At these words Napoleon rose up; he crossed his arms, advanced immediately op- posite to my mother, where he stood for some lime without saying a word. My mother bore, without llmching, his piercing look, and did not so much as drop her eyelid under that eagle's eye. 'Madame Pcrmon,' said he at length, •Salicetti is concealed in your house: nay, do not interrupt me. I do not know it for certain, but I have no doubt of it, because yesterday at five o'clock he was seen on the Boulevard, coming in this direction, after he had received intelligence of the decree of the Assemblj'. He has no friend in this quarter who would risk life and liberty to save him but yourself; there can be no doubt, therefore, where he is concealed.' "This long harangue gave my mother time to regain her assurance. 'What title could Balicetti have to demand an asylum from me 1 He knows that our sentiments are not the same. I was on the point of setting out, and had it not been for an accidental letter from my hus- band, I would have been now far advanced on my road to Gascony.' " ' What title bad he to seek an asylum in 5'our house?' replied Napoleon, 'that is the justest observation you have yet made, Madame Permon. To take refuge with a lonely woman, who might be compromised for a few hours of concealment to a proscribed culprit, is an act that no one else would be capable of. You are indeed his debtor; are )-t)u not. Mademoiselle Loulou V said he, turning to me, who had hitherto remained silent in the window. " I feigned to be engaged with flower-pots in a window, where there were several bushes of arbutus., ind did not answer him. My mother, who V I my motive, said to me, 'Ge- neral l; , • speaks to you, my dear.' 1 then turned to him ; the remains of my trouble might show him what had passed in the mind of a girl of fifieen, who was compelled, in spite of herself, to do an unpolite thing. He took my hand, pressed it between his two, and, turning to my mother, exclaimed, 'I ask your pardon; I have been in the wrong; your daughter has given me a lesson.' 'You give Lauretie more merit than she really has,' re- plied my mother. * She has not given you a lesson, tiecause she does not know wherefore she should do so; but I will do so immediately, if you persist in believing a thing which has no foundation, but might do mc irreparable mischief if it were spread abroad.' " Bniinparie said, with a voice full of emo- »ion 'Madame Permon. you are .in uncom- monly generous woman, and that man is a wicked man. You could not have closed }'our door upon him, and he knew it ; and yet you expose yourself and that child fur such a man. Formerly I hated him ; now I despise him. He has done me a great deal of harm ; yes, he has done me a great deal of harm, and you know it. He has had the malice to take advantage of his momentary ascendency to strive lo sink me below the water. He has accused me of crimes; for what crime can be so great as to be a traitor to your country"? Salicetti con- ducted himself in that affair of Loano, and my arrest, like a miserable wretch. Junot was going to have killed him, if I had not prevented him. That young man, full of fire and friend- ship for me, was anxious to have fought him in single combat ; he declared that if he would not fight, he would have thrown him over the window. Now he is proscribed; Salicetti, in his turn, can now appreciate the full extent of what it is to have one's destiny shattered, ruined by an accusation.' " ' Napoleon,' said my mother, stretching out her hand to him, ' Salicetti is not here. I swear he is not. And must I tell you all V ' Tell it; tell it,' said he, with extreme impatience. 'Well, Salicetti was here yesterday at six o'clock, but he went out at half-past eight. I convinced him of the impossibility of his remaining concealed in furnished lodgings. He admitted it, and went away.' " While my mother spoke, the eyes of Na- poleon continued fixed upon her with an eager- ness of which it is impossible to convey an idea. Immediately after, he moved aside, and walked rapidly through the chamber. ' I was right, then, after all,' he exclaimed. ' He had then the cowardice to say to a generous woman, Give your life for me. But did he who thus contrived to interest you in his fate, tell you that he had just assassinated one of his col- leagues 1 Did he wash his hands before he touched yours to implore mercy"!' " ' Napoleon, Napoleon !' exclaimed my mo- ther in Italian, and with great emotion, ' this is too much. Be silent, or I inust be gone. If they have murdered this man after he left me, at least it is no fault of mine.' Napoleon at this time was not less moved. He sought about everywhere like a- hound after its prey. He constantly listened to hear him, but could make out nothing. My mother was in despair. Salicetti heard every thing. A single pUnk separated him from us ; and I, in my inexpe- rience, trembled lest he should issue frorn his retreat and betray us all. At length, after a fruitless search of two hours, he ros-j and went away. It was full time ; my mother was Avorn out with mortal disquietude. 'A thousand thanks,' said he, as he left the room; 'and above all, Madame Permon, forgive me. But if you had ever been injured as I have been by'that man ! Adieu !' "—I. M7, 148. A few days after, Madame Permon set out for Gascony, Avlth Salicetti, disguised as a foot- man, seated behind the carriage. Hardly had they arrived at the first post, when a man ar- rived on horseback, with a letter for Madame Permon. They were all in despair, conceiv- ing they were discovered, but upon opening it, NAPOLEON, 33 their apprehensions were dispelled; it was from Bonaparte, who had received certain in- telligence from his servant that Salicetti, his mortal enemy, was in the carriage with her, and had been concealed in her house. He had learned it from his servant, who became acquainted with it from Madame Permon's maid, M-ho, though faithful to misfortune, could not conceal the secret from love. It was in the following terms : — " I never wished to pass for a hypocrite. I would be so, if I did not declare that for more than twenty days I have known for certain that Salicetti was concealed in your house. Recol- lect my words on the 1st Prairial ; I was then almost sure of it, now I know it beyond a doubt. Salicetti, you see I could repay you the injury you have don.e me ; iu doing so, I should only have requited the evil which you did to me, whilst you gratuitously injured one who had never offended you. Which is the nobler part at this moment — yours or mine ] I have it in ray power to revenge myself, but I will not do it. — Perhaps you will say that your benefac- tress serves as your shield, and I own that that consideration is powerful. But though you were alone, unarmed, and proscribed, your head would be safe from my hands. Go — seek in peace an asylum where you may become animated with nobler sentiments towards your country. My mouth is closed on your name, and will never open more on that subject. Repent, and appi-eciate my motives. I deserve it, for they are noble and generous. — Madame Permon — My warmest wishes attend you and your daughter. You are two helpless beings, without defence. May Providence and the prayers of a friend be ever with you ! Be prudent, and do not stop in the great towns. Adieu ! receive my kindest regards. — N. Bo- napahte." — I. 160. We regard this letter and the pi'evious transaction to which it refers, if it shall be deemed by those intimately acquainted with the parties as perfectly authentic, as by far the most important trait in the character of Na- poleon during his early life which has yet ap- peared. It demonstrates that at that period at least his heart was accessible to generous sen- timents, and that he was capable of perform- ing a noble action. Admitting that he was, in a great degree, swayed in this proceeding by his regard for Madame Permon, who appears to have been a woman of great attractions, and for whom, as we shall presently see, he con- ceiv^ed M'armer feelings than those of mere friendship, still it is not an ordinary character, and still less not an ordinary Italian character, which, from such motives, would forego the fiendish luxury of revenge. This trait, there- fore, demonstrates that Napoleon's character originally was not destitute of generosity; and the more charitable, and probably the more just, inference is, that the selfishness and ego- tism by which he was afterwards so strongly characterized, arose from that uninterrupted and extraordinary flow of prosperity which befell him, and which experience everywhere proves is more fatal to generosity or interest in others than any thing else in the course of man here below. 3 On the voyage along the charming banks of the Garonne from Bordeaux to Toulouse, our authoress gives the following just and in- teresting account: — " That mind must be really disquieted or in suffering, which does not derive the highest pleasure from the voyage by wafer from Bor- deaux to Toulouse. I have seen since the shores of the Arno, those of the Po, the Tagus, and the Brenta; I have seen the Arno in its thundering cascade, and in its placid waters ; all traverse fertile plains, and exhibit ravish- ing points of view: but none of them recall the magical illusion of the voj^age from Bor- deaux to Toulouse. Marmande, Agen, Lan- gon. La Reole, — all those towns whose names are associated with our most interesting recol- lections, are there associated with natural scenery prodigal of beauty, and illuminated by a resplendent sun and a pure atmosphere. I can conceive nothing more beautiful than those enchanted banks from Reole to Agen. Groups of trees, Gothic towers, old castles, venerable steeples, which then, alas! no longer called the Catholics to prayer. Alas ! at that time, even the bells were absent, — thej'- no longer called the faithful tc the house of God. Every thing was sad and deserted around that antique porch. The grass was growing between the stones of the tombs in the nave; and the shepherd was afar ofl^, preaching the word of God in distant lands, while his flock, deprived of the Bread of Life, beheld their infants springing up around them, without any more religious instruction than the savages of the desert."— L 166. The fact here mentioned of the total want of religious instruction in the people of th« country in France, is by far the most serious consequence which has followed the tempests of the Rev'olution. The thread of religious in- struction from parent to child, has, for the first time since the introduction of Chi'istianity in the western world, been broken over nearly a whole nation. A whole generation has not only been born, but educated and bred up to manhood, without any other religious impres- sions than what they received from the tradi- tions of their parents. Lavalette has recorded, that during the campaigns of Napoleon in Italy, the soldiers never once entered a church, and looked upon the ceremonies of the Catho- lics in the same way as they Avould have done on the superstition of Hindostan or Mexico. So utterly ignorant were they of the elements even of religious knowledge, that when they crossed from Egypt into Syria, they knew not that they were near the places celebrated in Holy Writ ; they drank without consciousness at the fountains of Moses, wound without emotion round the foot of Mount Sinai, and quartered at Bethlehem and on Mount Carmel, ignorant alike of the cradle of Christianity, or of the glorious efforts of their ancestors in those scenes to regain possession of the Holy Sepulchre. What the ultimate consequences of ihis universal and unparalleled break in religious instruction must be, it is not dilhcult to fore- tell. The restoration of the Christian worship by Napoleon, the efforis of the Bourbons during M ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. fifieen years to restore its sway, have proved in a preal degree nugatory: Christianity, re- appearing in llie garb of political power, has lost us original and destined hold of the peo- ple ; It is regarded by all the ardent and impe- tuous part of the nation, as a mere collection of antiquated prejudices or nursery talcs, adopted by government for political purposes, and (itted only to enslave and fetter the human mind. The consequence has been, an univer- sal emancipation of the nation, in towns at least, from the fetters of religion, — a dissolu- tion of manners pervading the middling and lower orders to a degree unparalleled in mo- dern Europe, — and an universal inclination in the higher to adopt selfish maxims in life, and act upon the principles of individual interest and elevation. This is the great feature of modern society in France, — the distinguishing characteristic which is alike deplored by their writers, and observed by the strangers Avho visit their coun.rj'. They are fast descending into the selfishness and egotism which, in ancient times, were the invariable forerunners of political decline. This character has be- come incapable of sustaining genuine freedom; from the fountains of selfishness its noble streams never yet flowed. The tempests of democracy will for a time agitate France, because the people will long strive to shake off the restraints of government and religion, in order that no fetters may be imposed on their passions ; when they have discovered, as they will soon do, that this leads only to universal suflering, they will sink down quietly and for ever under the shadow of des- potism. And this will be the consequence and the punishment of their abandonment of that which constitutes the sole basis of lasting or general freedom — the Christian religion and private virtue. One of the convulsions attended with the least suffering in the whole course of the Re- volution, was the 13th Vendemiare, 1795, when Napoleon, at the head of the troops of the Convention, .'iOOO strong, defeated 40,000 of the National Guard of Paris, on the very ground at the Tuileries, which was rendered famous, thirt3'-five years after, by the over- throw of Charles X. and the dynasty of the Bourbons. The fidlowing description, how- ever, conveys a lively picture of what civil war is, even in its least horrible forms. " During some hours, we flattered ourselves that matters would be arranged between the Naticmal Guards and the Convention ; but sud: Your zea- lots,' added he, addressing a young enthusiast in that system, 'are desirous of the palm of martyrdom, but I will not give it them ; nothing shall fall on them but strokes of ridicule, and I little know the French, if they do not prove mortal.' In truth, the result proved how well he had appreciated the French character. It perished after an ephemeral existence of five years, and left not a trace behind, but a few verses, preserved as a relic of thai age 0/ mental aberration." — VI. 40 — 43. ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Xhis r>Tvsn.'<» is ven* remarkable. Here we haredi -t intcliect of the age, Napoleon hill nun? to the Gospel, and to the J.. r. as ihe only pure system of re- f human com- . . ourincr. in the close ot his Moody career, to cement anew the fabric of society, which he had had so large a share in destroying, by a recurrence to reli- gious ii as! Soindi- '\Msdevo- tion to ; in heart; so ;y is it to the construction of the first elcuu-nis of society, and so well may you distinguish the spirit of anarchy and revolution, by the irreligious ten- dency which invariably attends it, and prepares the overthrow of ever%- nation^ institution, by S3] I" ever)- private virtue. Tlir -h residents over all France, on the rupture of the peace of Amiens, was one of the most cruel and unjustifiable acts of Napoleon's government. The following T : and the First Consul on -ilarly characteristic of the impetuous fits of passion to which that great man was subject, and which occasionally be- trayed him into actions so unworthy of his general character. " On** 'Tc^rnin?, at five o'clock, when day was ju-' -> break, an order arrived from the i ' .to repair instantly to Malmai- son. He had been labouring till four in the morning, and had but just fallen asleep. He set off instantly, and did not return till five in ing. When he entered he was in great 1 ; his meeting with him had been stormy, and the conversation long. " When Junot arrived at the First Consul's. he found his figure in disorder; his features were contracted; and every thing announced one of those terrible agitations which made ever>- one who approached him tremble. *** Junot,' said he to his old aid-de-camp, ' are yon still the friend on whom I can rely ? Yes or no. No circumlocution.* " ' Yes, my General.' "'Well then, before an hour is over, you must take measures instantly, so that all the English, without one single exception, shall be instantly arrested. Room enough for them will be found in the Temple, the Force, the Abbaye, •^ of Paris; it is indispen- uld all be arrested. We mil iheir government, that entrenched the'..- , are in their isle, they can be reach- ed by an enemv who is under no obligation to'T ■ ■ ' • ■ oy.— The '*"'"■ lenllyon .. and assign as a ' ' - --.choked his voice, and he was some time in r^overing himself. ^ "^ • I IS m- tw « of of .\ n pretence that, since it was signed, •^e ;..,a of the contracting parties had changed.' hi^ En KV i-' ..: n for were now handed to him he perceived a motive to authorize the terrible measure which Napoleon had commanded. He would willingly have given him his life, but now he was required to do a thing to the last degree repugnant to the liberal principles in which he had been trained. " The First Consul waited for some time for an answer; but seeing the attitudeof Junot, he proceeded, after a pause of some minutes, as if the answer had already been given. " ' That measure must be executed at seven o'clock this evening. I am resolved that, this evening, not the most obscure theatre at Paris, not the most miserable restaurateur, should contain an Englishman within its walls.' " ' My General,' replied Junot, who had now recovered his composure, ' you know not only my attachment to your person, but my devotion in every thing which regards yourself. Believe me, then, it is nothing but that devotion whick makes me hesitate in obeying yon, before en« treating you to take a few hours to reflect en the measure which you have commanded Eie to adopt.' " Napoleon contracted his eye-brows. " ' Again !' said he. ' What ! is the scene of the other day so soon to be renewed 1 Lannes and you truly give yourselves extraordinary license. Duroc alone, with his tranquil air, does not think himself entitled to preach ser- mons to me. Y"ou shall find, gentlemen, by God, that I can square my hat as well as any man ; Lannes has already experienced it ; and I do not think he will enjoy much his eating of oranges at Lisbon. As for you, Junot. do not rely too much on my friendship. The day on which I doubt of yours, mine is destroyed.' "'My General,' replied Junot, profoundly afflicted at being so much misunderstood, "^ it is not at the moment that I am giving you the strongest proof of my devotion, that you should thus address me. Ask my blood; ask my life; they belong to you, and shall be freely render- ed ; but to order me to do a thing which will cover us ail with ' " ' Go on,' he interrupted, ' go on, by all means- What will happen to me because I retaliate on a perfidious government the inju- ries which it has heaped upon me V '• • It does not belong to me.' replied Junot, ' to decide upon what line of conduct is suit- able to you. Of this, however, I am well as- sured, that if any thing unworthy of your glory is attempted, it will be from your eyes being fascinated by the men, who only disquiet yoo by their advice, and incessantly urge you to measures of severity. Believe me. my Gene- ral, these men do you infinite mischief.' " ' Who do you mean !' said Napoleon. "Junot mentioned the names of several, and stated what he knew of them. " ' Nevertheless, these men are devoted to .' rephed he. ' One of them said the other .,iy. " If the First Consul were to desire me to kill my father, I would kill him." ' " ' I know not, my General.' replied Junot, ' what desree of attachment to you it is, to sup- -Me of giving an order to a son his own father. But it matters not ; when one is so unfortunate as to think ia that manner, they seldom make it public' NAPOLEON. 41 "Two }-ears afterwards, the First Consul, who was then Emperor, spoke to me of that scene, after mj- return from Portugal, and told me that he was on the point of embracing Ju- not at these words : so much was he struck with these noble expressions addressed to him, his general, his chief, the man on whom alone his destinj- depended. 'For in fine,' said the Emperor, smiling, 'I must own I am rather nnreasonable when I am angry, and that you know, Madame Junot.' " As for m)- husband, the conversation which he had with the First Consul was of the warm- est description. He went the length of remind- ing him, that at the departure of the ambassa- dor, Lord Whitworth, the most solemn assu- rances had been given him of the safety of all the English at Paris. 'There are,' said he, * amongst them, women, children, and old men ; there are numbers, my General, who night and morning pray to God to prolong your days. They are for the most part persons engaged in trade, for abnost all the higher classes of that na- tion have left Paris. The damage they would sustain from being all imprisoned, is immense. Oh, my General ! it is not for j-ou whose noble and generous mind so well comprehends what- ever is grand in the creation, to confound a generous nation with a perfidious cabinet' " — VI, 406—410. With the utmost difiiculty, Junot prevailed on Napoleon to commute the original order, which had been for immediate imprisonment, into one for the confinement of the unfortu- nate British subjects in particular towns, where it is well known most of them lingered till de- livered by the Allies in 1814. But Napoleon never forgave this interference with his wrath; and shortly after, Junot was removed from the government of Paris, and sent into honourable exile to superintend the formation of a corps of grenadiers at Arras. The great change which has taken place in the national character of France since the Re- storation, has bean noticed b}' all writers on the subject. The Duchess of Abrantes' obser- vations on the subject are highly curious. "Down to the year 1800, the national cha- racter had undergone no material alteration. That character overcame all perils, disregard- ed all dangers, and even laughed at death it- self. It was this calm in the victims of the Revolution which gave the executioners their principal advantage. A friend of my acquaint- ance, who accidentally found himself sur- rounded by the crowd who were returning from witnessing the execution of Madame du Barri, heard two of the women in the street speaking to each other on the subject, and one said to the other, 'How that one cried out! If they all cry out in that manner, I will not return again to the executions.' What a volume of reflections arise from these few words spoken, with all the unconcern of those barbarous days ! " The three years of the Revolution follow- ing 1793, taught us to weep, but did not teach ns to cease to laugh. They laughed under the axe yet stained with blood ; — they laughed as the victim slept at Venice under the burning irons which were to waken his dreams. Alas ! how deep must have been the wouni^ wbicli have changed this lightsome character ! For the joyous Frenchman laughs nomoie; and if he still has some happy days, the sun of gaiety has set for ever. This change has taker- place during the fifteen years which have fol lowed the Restoration; while the horrors of the wars of religion, the tyrannical reigns of Louis XI. and XIV., and even the bloody days of the Convention, produced no such efiect."— V. 142. Like all the other writers on the modem state of France, of whatever school or party in politics, Madame Junot is horrified with the deterioration of manners, and increased vul- garity, which has arisen from the democratic invasions of later times. Listen to this ardent supporter of the revolutionary order of things, on this subject : — "At that time, (1801,) the habits of good company were not yet extinct in Paris; of the old company of France, and not of what is now termed good company, and which prevailed thirt}' years ago only among postilions and stable-boys. At that period, men of good birth did not smoke in the apartinents of their wives, be- cause they felt it to be a dirty and disgusting practice; they generally washed their hands; when they went out to dine, or to pass the evening in a house of their acquaintance, they bowed to the lady at its head in entering and retiring, and did not appear so abstracted in their thoughts as to behave as they -would have done in an hotel. They were then careful not to turn their back on those vAih whom they convastd., so as to show only an ear or the point of a nose to those whom they addressed. They spoke of something else, besides those eternal politics on which no two can ever agree, and which give occasion only to the interchange of bitter expressions. There has sprung from these endless disputes, disunion in families, the dissolution of the oldest friendships, and the growth of hatred which wjU continue till the grave. Experience proves that in these contests no one is ever convinced, and that each goes away more than ever persuaded of the truth of his own opinions. " The customs of the world now give me nothing but pain. From the bosom of the re- tirement where I have been secluded for these fifteen years, I can judge, without preposses- sion, of the extraordinaiy revolution in man- ners which has lately taken place. Old im- pressions are replaced, it is said, by new ones; that is all. Are, then, the new ones superior? I cannot believe it. Morality- itself is rapidly undergoing dissolution; everi" character is con- taminated, and no one knows from whence the poison is inhaled. Young men now lounge away their evenings in the box of a theatre, or the iJoulevards, or cany on elegant converea- tion with a fair seller of gloves and perfiiniery, make compliments on her lily and vermilion cheeks, and present her with a cheap ting. ac« companied with a gross and indelicate compli- ment. Society is so "disunited, that it is daily becoming more vulgar, in the literal sense of the word. Whence any improvenient is to arise. God only knows.'" — V. 156. 157. While we are concluding these observations 4S ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Mother bloody revolt has occurred at Paris ; the three plorious daj's of June have come to crown the work, and developc the consequences of the three plorious days of July.* After a desperate slrn^jf^le, maintained with much greater resolution and vigour on the part of the insurgents than the insurrection whicli E roved fatal to Charles X.; after Paris having een the theatre, for three days, of bloodshed and devastation ; after 75,000 men had been engaged against the Revolutionists; after the thunder of artillery had broken down the Re- publican barricades, and showers of grape- shot had thinned the ranks of the citizen-sol- diers, the military force triumphed, and peace was restored to the trembling cit)'. What has been the consequence ! All the forms of law have been suspended; military commissions established ; domiciliary visits become univer- sal; several thousand persons thrown into prison ; and, before this, the fusillades of the new heroes of the Barricades have announced to a suflering country that the punishment of their sins has commenced. The liberty of the press is destroj'ed, the editors delivered over to military commissions, the printing presses of the opposition journals thrown into the Seine, and all attempts at insurrection, or words tending to excite it, and all offences of the j)r(<:s taidiiig to cxrite dissatisfaction or revolt, handed over to military commissions, com- posed exclusively of officers ! This is the freedom which the three glorious days have procured for France ! The soldiers were desperately chagrined and mortified at the result of the three days of July ; and well they might be so, as all the sub- sequent siilTerings of their country, and the total extinction of their liberties on the last occasion, were owing to their vacillation in the first revolt. They have now fought with the utmost fury against the people, as they did at Lyons, and French blood has amply stained their bayonets ; but it has come too late to wash out the stain of their former treason, or revive the liberties w^hich it lost for their country. Polignac is now completely justified fcT al but the incapacity of commencing a change of the constitution with 5000 men, four pieces of cannon, and eight rounds of grape-shot to support it. The ordinances of Charles X., now adopted with increased severity by Louis Phi- lippe, were destined to accomplish, withoux bloodshed, that change which the fury of de mocracy rendered necessary, and without which it has been found the Throne of the Barricades cannot exist. It is evident that the French do not know what freedom is. They had it under the Bourbons, as our people had it under the old constitution ; but it M'ould not content them, because it w^as not liberty, but power, not freedom, but democracy, not ex- emption from tyranny, but the power of tyran- nizing over others, that they desired. They • gained their point, they accomplished their M'ishes, — and the consequence has been, two years of suffering, followed by military des- potism. We always predicted the three glori ous days would lead to this result ; but the termination of the drama has come more rapidly than the history of the first Revolution led us to anticipate. BOSSUET. To those who study only the writers of a particular period, or have been deeply im- mersed in the literature of a certain age, it is almost incredible how great a change is to be found in the human mind as it there appears, as compared with distant times, and how much even the greatest intellects are govei-ned by the circumstances in which they arise, and the prevailing tone of the public mind with which they are surrounded. How much so- ever wc may ascribe, and sometimes with justice ascribe, to the force and ascendant of individual genius, nothing is more certain than that, in the general case, it is external events and circumstances which give a certain bent to human speculation, and that the most original thought is rarely able to do much more than anticipate by a few years, the simul- taneous efforts of inferior intellects. Gene- rally, it will be fdund that particular seasons t-r periods in the great year of nations or of the world, bring forth their own appropriate I -— • Written on ttin dny wlien tlin nrrniiniA of the dpfnat •jf tlic cri-nt ripvolt nt tin- rioiKlcr of Slllcri by Loulg riiillpiH: and Marxliul Soult wore received. fruits : it is rarely that in June can be matured those of September. The changes which have made the greatest and most lasting alteration on the progress of science or the march of human affairs — printing, gunpowder, steam navigation — Avere brought to light, it is hardly known how, and by several different persons, so nearly at the same time, that it is difficult to say to M-hom the palm of original invention is to be awarded. The discover)' of fluxions, awarded by common consent to the unap- proachable intellect of Newton, ivas made about the same time by his contemporaries, Leibnitz and Gregoiy; the honours of original thought in political economy are divided be- tween Adam Smith and the French economists ; the improvements on the steam-engine were made in the same age by Watt and Arkwright ; and the science of strategy -was developed with equal clearness in the German treatise of the Archduke Charles, as the contemporary treatises of Jomini and Napoleon. The great- est intellect perceives only the coming light; the rays of the rising sun strike first upon the summits of the mountains, but his ascending BOSSUET. 43 I beams will soon illuminate the slopes on their ( sides, and the valleys at their feet. ' There is, however, a considerable variety t in the rapidity with which the novel and ori- ginal ideas of different great men are com- municated tG their contempcraries ; and hence the extraordinary difference between the early celebrity which some works, destined for future immortality, have obtained in comparison of others. This has long been matter of familiar observation to all persons at all acquainted with literary history. The works of some great men have at once stepped into that celebrity which was their destined meed through every subsequent age of the world, while the pro- ductions of others have languished on through a long period of obscurity, unnoticed by all save a few elevated minds, till the period arrived when the world became capable of understanding their truth, or feeling their beauty. The tomb of Euripides, at Athens, bore that all Greece mourned at his obsequies. We learn from Pliny's Epistles, that even in his own lifetime, immortality was anticipated not only for Tacitus, but all who were noticed in his annals. Shakspeare, though not yet arrived at the full maturity of his fame, was j'et well known to, and enthusiastically ad- mired by his contemporaries. Lope dc Vega amassed a hundred thousand crowns in the sixteenth centur}^, by the sale of his eighteen hundred plays. GiJjbon's early volumes ob- tained a celebrity in the outset nearly as great as his elaborate and fascinating work has since attained. In the next generation after Adam Smith, his principles were generally enibraced, and largely acted upon by the legis- lature. The first edition of Robertson's Scot- .and sold off in a month ; and Sir Walter Scott, by the sale of his novels and poems, was able, in twenty years, besides entertaining all the literary society of Europe, to purchase tlie large estate, and rear the princely fabric, library, and armory of Abbotsford. Instances, on the other hand, exist in equal number, and perhaps of a still more striking character, in whicli the greatest and most pro- found works which the human mind has ever produced have remained, often for along time, unnoticed, till the progress of social affairs brought the views of others generally to a level with that of their authors. Bacon bequeathed his reputation in his last testament to the ge- neration after the next; so clearly did he per- ceive that more than one race of men must expire before the opinions of others attained the level of his own far-seeing sagacitj'. Burke advanced principles in his French Revolution of which we are now, only now, beginning, after the lapse of half a century, to feel the full truth and importance. Hume met with so little encouragement in the earlier volumes of his history, that but for the animating assu- rances of a few enlightened friends, he has him- self told us, he would have resigned his task in despair. Milton sold the Paradise Lost for Ave pounds, and that immortal work languished on with a very limited sale till, fifty years after- wards, it was brought into light by the criti- cisms of Addison. Campbell for years could ttot find a bookseller who would buy the Plea- sures of Hope. Coleridge and Wordsworth passed for little better than imaginative illu minati with the great bulk of their contem^o raries. The principle which seems to regulate ihi.s remarkable difference is this: Where a work of genius either describes manners, characters, or scenes with which the great bulk of man- kind are familiar, or concerning which they are generally desirous of obtaining informa- tion ; or if it advance principles which, based on the doctrines popular with the multitude, lead them to new and agreeable results, or deduces from them conclusions slightly ii advance of the opinions of the age, but lyin,4 in the same direction, it is almost sure of meeting with immediate popularity. Where, on the other hand, it is founded on principles which are adverse to the prevailing current of public opinion — where it sternly asserts the great principles of religion and morality, in opposition to the prejudices or passions of a cornipted age — when it advocates the neces- sity of a rational and conservative govern- ment, in the midst of the fervor of innovation or the passion of revolution — when it stigma- tizes present vices, or reprobates present follies, or portrays the consequences of present iniquity — when it appeals to feelings and vir- tues which have passed from the breasts of the present generation — the chances are that it will meet with present admiration only from a few enlightened or virtuous men, and that a different generation must arise, possibly a new race of mankind become dominant, before it attains that general popularity which is its destined and certain reward. On this account the chances are much against the survivance, for any considerable period, of any work, either on religion, politics, or morals, which has early attained to a very great celebrit}', because the fact of its having done so is, in general, evidence of its having fallen in, to an extent inconsistent with truth, with the pre- vailing opinions and prejudices of the age. In such opinions there is almost always a consi- derable foundation of truth, but as commonly a large intermixture of error. Principles are, by the irreflecting mass, in general pushed too far ; due weight is not given to the considera- tions on the other side ; the concurring influ- ence of other causes is either overlooked or disregarded. This is more particularly the case Avith periods of general excitement, whe- ther on religious or political subjects, inso- much that there is hardly an instance of works Avhich attained an early and extraordinary celebrity at such eras having sui-vived the fervour" which gave them birth, and the gene- ral concurrence of opinion in which they were cradled. Where are now the innumerable polemical writings which issued both from the Catholic and Protestant divines during the fervour of the Reformation ] Where the forty thousand tracts which convulsed the nation in the course of the great Rebellion 1 Where the deluge of enthusiasm and infidelity which overspread the world at the commencement of the French Revolution? On the other hand, the works which have survived such periods of general fervour are those whose 44 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. authors boldly and firmly, resting on (he in- icmal conviction of truth, set themselves to oppose the prevailing vices or follies of their age, and whose works, in consequence little esiccmod by their contemporaries, have now risen into the purer regions of the moral at- mosphere, ami now shine, far above' the changes of mortalit)', as fixed stars in the highest heavens. Of this character is Bacon, whose sublime intellect, bursting the fetters of a narrow-minded age, outstripped by two centuries the progress of the human mind — Jeremy Taylor, whose ardent soul, loathing the vices of his corrupted contemporaries, clothed the lessons of religion in the burning words of genius — and Burke, whose earlier career, chained in the fetters of party, has now been forgotten in the lustre of the original and independent thoughts, adverse to the spirit of the age, which burst forth in his works on the French Revolution. In comparing, on subjectsof political thought or social amelioration, the writings of the school of Louis XIV. with that of the Revolution, the progress of the human mind appears prodi- gious — and so it will speedily appear from the quotations which we shall lay before our readers. But, in the general comparison of the two, there is one thing very remarkable, and which is exactly the reverse of what might d priori have been expected, and what the ig- norant vulgar or party writers still suppose to be the case — this is the superior independence cf thought, and bold declamation against the vices of the ruling power in the state, which the divines and moralists of the Grande Mo- narque exhibit, when compared with the cring- ing servility and oriental flattery which the writers of the Revolutionaiy school, whether in France or England, have never ceased to address to their democratic patrons and rulers invested with supreme authority. We need not remind our readers what is the language, even of able writers and profound thinkers of the modern democratic school, in regard to the sources of all abuse in government, and the quarter from whence alone any social im- provement can be expected. It is kings and aristocrats who are the origin of all oppres- sion and unhappiness; it is their abuses and misgovernment which have ever been the real causes of public suflering; it is their insatia- ble avarice, rapacity, and selfishness which have in every age brought misery and desola- tion upon the humbler and more virtuous members of society. Where, then, is ameliora- tion to be looked fori and in what class of society is an antidote- to be found to the in- herent vices and abuses of power 1 In the middle and h^vcr ranks;— it is their virtue, inlelligcnco, and- patriotism which is the real spring of all public prosporilv— it is their un- ceasing labour and industry which is the source of all public wealth— their unshaken constancy and courage which is at once the only durable foundation of national safety, and the prolific fountain of national glory. I'rinccs may err, ministers may commit injustice ; but the people, when once onli;,ditenod by educa- tion, and intrusted with power, arc never wrong— the masses never mistake their real interests : their interests are on the side of good government — of them it may truly be said, J'ox populi, vox Dei. Such is the language which the democratic flatterers of these times incessantly address to the popular rulers of the state — to the masses by whom popularity and eminence is to be won — to the Government by whom patronage and power is distributed From such degrading specimens of general servility and business, let us refresh our eyes, and redeem the honour of human nature, by turning to the thundering strains in which Bossuet and Fenelon impressed upon their courtly auditory and despotic ruler, the eternal doctrines of judgment to come, and the stern manner in which they traced to the vices or follies of princes the greater part of the evils _ which disturb the world. ■ It is thus that Ft^nelon, in the name of Men- tor, addresses his royal pupil, the heir of the French monarchy: — " A king is much less acquainted than pri vate individuals with those by whom he is surrounded; every one around him has a mask on his visage ; every species of artifice is exhausted to deceive hini — alas ! Tele- maque ! you will soon experience this too bit- terly. The more extensive the kingdom is which you have to govern, the more do )'ou stand in need of ministers to assist you in your labours, and the more are you exposed to the chances of misrepresentation. The ob- scurity of private life throws a veil over our faults, and magnifies the idea of the powers of men; but supreme authority puts the virtues to the test, and unveils even the most incon- siderable failing; — grandeur is like the glasses which magnify all the objects seen through them. The whole world is occupied by ob- serving a single man, flattering his virtues, applauding his vices in his presence, execrat- ing them in his absence. Meanwhile, the king is but a man; beset by all the humours, pas- sions, ajidireakiicsscs of tnortality ; surrounded by artful flatterers, who have all their objects to gain in leading him into vices. Hardly has he redeemed one fault, when he falls into another; such is the situation even of the most enlightened and virtuous kings; what then must be the destiny of those who are de- praved 1 " The longest and best reigns are frequently too short to repair the mischief done, and often without intending it at their commencement. Royalty is born the heir to all these miseries; human weakness often sinks under the load by which it is oppressed. Men are to be pitied for being placed under the government of one as weak and fallible as themselves ; the gods alone would be adequate to the due regulation of human aflairs. Nor are kings less to be pitied, being but men ; that is to say, imperfect and fallible beings, and charged with the go. vernment of an innumerable multitude of cor- rupted and deceitful men. " The countries in which the authority of the sovereign is most absolute, are precisely tiiose in which they enjoy least real power. They lake, they raise every thing ; they alone pos scss the state; but meanwhile every class of society languishes, the fields are deserted, cities BOSSUET. 45 decline, commerce disappears. The king, who cannot engross in his own person the whole state, and who cannot increase in grandeur, but with the prosperity of his people, annihi- lates himself by degrees by the decay of riches and power in his subjects. His dominions become bereaved both of wealth and men ; the last decline is irreparable. His absolute power indeed gives him as many slaves as he has subjects ; he is flattered, adored, and his slightest wish is a law; every one around him trembles ; but wait till the slightest revolution arrives, and that monstrous power, pushed to an extravagant excess, cannot endure ; it lias no foundation in the affections of the people ; it has in"itated all the members of the state, and constrained them all to sigh after a change. At the first stroke which it receives, the idol is overturned, broken, and trampled under foot. Contempt, hatred, fear, resentment, distrust, in a word, all the passions conspire against so odious an authority. The king who, in his vain prosperity, never found a single man suf- ficiently bold to tell him the truth, will not find in his misfortune a single person either to ex- tenuate his faults or defend him against his enemies." — Tdemaquc, liv. xii. ad Jin. Passages similar to this abound in all the great ecclesiastical writers of the age of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. They are to be found profusely scattered through the works of Bos- suet, Massilon, Fenelon, and Bourdaloue. We have many similar passages marked, but the pressure of other matters more immediately connected with the object of this paper pre- cludes their insertion. Now this independence and boldness of thought and expVession, in courtly churchmen, and addressed to a courtly auditory, is extremely remarkable. It was to the Grande Monarque and his numerous train of princes, dukes, peeresses, ladies, and cour- tiers, that these eternal, but unpalatable truths were addressed ; it was the holders of all the church patronage of France, that were thus reminded of the inevitable result of misgo- vernment on the part of the ruling power. We speak much about the inci'easing intelligence, spirit, and independence of the age ; neverthe- less we should like to see the same masculine cast of thought, the same caustic severity of expression applied to the vices and follies of the present holders of power by the expectants of their bounty, as was thus fearlessly rung into the ears of the despotic rulers of France by the titled hierarchy who had been raised to greatness by their support. We should like to see a candidate for popular suffrage on ihe hustings condemn, in equally unmeasured terms, the vices, follies, and passions of the people ; or a leading orator on the liberal side, portray in as vivid colours, from the Ministe- rial benches in the House of Commons, the inevitable consequences of democratic selfish- ness and injustice ; or a favourite preacher on the Voluntary system, thunder, in no less for- cible language, in the ears of his astonished audience, the natural results of fervour and intrigue among popular constituencies. Alas ! we see none of these things ; truth, which did venture to make itself heard, when sanctified by the Church, in the halls of princes, is ut- terly banished from the precincts of the many headed despots ; and i-eligion, which loudly proclaimed the universal corruption and weak- ness of humanity in the ears of monarchs, can- not summon up sufficient courage to meet, in their strongholds of power, the equally de- praved and selfish masses of the people. Aristotle has said that the courtier and the demagogue are not only nearly allied to each other, but are in fact the same men, varying not in their object, but in the quarter to which, according to the frame of government, they address their flattery; but this remarkable fact would seem to demonstrate that the latter is a more thorougli and servile courtier than the former ; and that truth will more rarely be found in the assemblies of the multitude than in the halls of princes. In truth, the boldness and indignation of language conspicuous in the gi^eat ornament* of the French Church would be altogether iv. explicable on merely worldly considerations . and accordingly it will never be found among the irreligious and selfish flatterers of demo- cracy. It is religion alone, which, inspiring men with objects and a sense of duty above this world, can lead to that contempt of pre- sent danger, and that fearless assertion of eternal truth, in the presence of power, which has formed in every age the noblest attribute of the Christian Church. In the temporal courtiers of no age or country has- there ever been found an example of the same cotirage- ous maintenance of principle and castigatioa of crime in defiance of the frowns of authority , these worldly aspirants have ever been as servile and submissive to kings as the syco- phantish flatterers of a democratic multitude have been lavish in the praise of their in tellectual wisdom. And the principle which rendered Bossuet and Fenelon the courageous assertors of eternal truth in the chapels ant court of the Grand Monarque, was the sam as that which inspired Latimer, the martyr ol the English Church, with such heroic firm ness in resisting the tyrannic injustice of Henry VIII. In the midst of the passions and cruelty of that blood-stained tyrant, the up- right prelate preached a sermon in his pre- sence at the Chapel-Koyal, condemning, in the strongest terms, the very crimes to whici? every one knew the monarch was peculiarly addicted. Enraged beyond measure at the re buke thus openly administered to his " plea sant vices," Henry sent for Latimer, an3 threatened him with instant death if he did not on the next occasion retract all his cen- sures as openly as he had made them. The reproof got wind, and on the next Sunday the Royal Chapel was crowded with the courtiers, eager to hear the terms in which the inflexi- ble prelate was to recant his censures on the voluptuous tyrant. But Latimer ascended the pulpit, and after a long pause, fixing his eyes steadily on Henry, exclaimed, in the quaint language of the time, to which its inherent dignity has communicated eloquence — "Be- think thee, Hugh Latimer ! that thou art in the presence of thy woridly sovereign, who hath power to terminate thy earthly life, and cast all thy worldly goods into the flames . iJut 46 ALISOX'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. bethink thee also, Hn?;h Latimer! that thou art ill the presence of thy Heavenly Father, whose riRht hand is niigiiiy to dcsi'ruy as to save, and who can cast thy soul into hell fire ;" and immediately be.2;an, in terms even severer and more cutting than before, to castigate the favourite vices and crimes of his indignant sovereign. The issue of the tale was dilTercnt from what the cruel character of the tyrant might have led us to expect. Henr)', who, with all his atrocity, was not on some occa- sions destitute of generous sentiments, was penetrated by the heroic constancy of the venerable prelate, and instead of loading him with chains, and sending him, as every one expected, to the scaffold, openly expressed his admiration of his courage, and took him more into favour than ever. The philosophical work of Bossuet, which has attained to most general ce!ebritj% is his "Histoire Universe lie ;" and Chateaubriand has repeatedl}', in his later writings, held it up as an unequalled model of religious general- ization. We cannot concur in these eulogiuras; and in nothing perhaps does the vast progress of the human mind, during the last hundred and fifty years, appear more conspicuous than in comparing this celebrated treatise with the works on similar subjects of many men of in- ferior intellects in later times. The design of the work was grand and imposing; nothing Jess than a sketch of the divine government of the world in past ages, and an elucidation of the hidden designs of Providence in all the past revolutions of mankind. In this magnifi- cent attempt he has exhibited a surprising extent of erudition, and cast over the com- plicated thread of human affairs the eagle glance of genius and piety ; but he has not, in our humble apprehension, caught the spirit, or traced the real thread of divine administra- tion. He was too deeply read in the Old Testa- ment, too strongly imbued M-ith the Fathers of the Church, to apprehend the manner in which Supreme Wisdom, without any special or mi- raculous interposition, works out the moral government of the world, and develops the objects of eternal foresight by the agency of human passions, virtues, and vices. His His- toric Theology is all tinged with the character of the Old Testament ; it is the God of Battles whom he ever sees giving the victory to His chosen ; it is His Almighty Arm which he dis- cerns operating directly in the rise and the fail of nations. Voltaire said with truth that his " Universal History" is little more than the History of the Jews. It was reserved for a future age to discern, in the complicated thread of human affairs, the operation not less certain, but more impartial, of general laws; to see in human passions the moving springs of social improvement, and the hidden instruments of human punishment; to discern, in the rise and fall of nations, the operation, not so much of the active interposition, as of the general tendency of Divine power; and in the efi^orts which the wicked make for their own aggran- dizement, or the scope whirh they afl^ord to thfir own passions, the rorlain causes of ap- \iroach>ng retribution. That Providence cx- rrcibes an unceasing superintendence of human affairs, and that the consequences of public actions are subjected to permanen laws, the tendency of which in national, as ia private life, is to make the virtues or vices of men as instruments of their own reward or punishment, is obvious upon the most cursory survey of history, as well as private life; am. though it cannot be affirmed that the sequence is invariable, yet it is sufficiently frequent to warrant certain inferences as to the general character of the laws. We cannot affirm that every day in summer is to be w-arm, and every day in winter cold; but nevertheless, the gen- eral character of those periods is such as to warrant the conclusion that the rotation of the season was intended, and in general does pro- duce that variation on temperature, and the consequent checking and development of the fruits of the earth. But, as far as we can dis- cern, the intentions of the Supreme Being are here, as elsewhere, manifested by general laws ; the agents employed are the virtues, vices, and passions of men; and the general plan of divine administration is to be gathered rather from an attentive consideration of the experi- enced consequences of human actions, than any occasional interposition to check or sus- pend the natural course of events. As a specimen of the mode in which Bossuet regards the course of events, we subjoin the concluding passage of his Universal History : — "This long chain of causes and effects, on which the fate of empires depends, springs at once from the secrets of Divine Providence. God holds on high the balance of all kingdoms — all hearts are in his hands; sometimes he lets loose- the passions — sometimes he re- strains them; by these means he moves the whole human race. Does he Avish to raise up a conqueror — he spreads terror before his arms, and inspires his soldiers with invincible courage. Does he wish to raise up legislators — he pours into their minds the spirit of fore- sight and wisdom. He causes them to fore- see the evils which menace the state, and lay deep in wisdom the foundations of public tran- quillity. He knows that human intellect is ever contracted in some particulars. He then draws the film from its eyes, extends its views, and afterwards abandons it to itself — blinds it, precipitates it to destruction. Its precautions become the snare which entraps ; its foresight the subtlety which destroys it. It is in this way that God exercises his redoubtable judg- ments according to the immutable laws of eternal justice. It is his invisible hand which prepares effects in their most remote causes, and strikes the fatal blows, the very rebound of which involves nations in destruction. When he wishes to pour out the vials of his wrath, and overturn empires, all becomes weak and vacillating in their conduct. Egypt, once so wise, became intoxicated, and faltered at every step, because the Most High had poured the spirit of madness into its counsels. It no longer knew what step to take; it faltered, it perished. But let us not deceive ourselves; God can restore when he pleases the blinded vision; and he who insulted the blind- ness of others, himself falls into the most pro- found darkness, without any other cause being BOSSUET. 47 carried into operation to overthrow the longest course of prosperity. " It is thus that God reigns over all people. Let us no longer speak of hazard or fortune, or speak of it only as a veil to our weakness — an excuse to our ignorance. That which ap- pears chance to our uncertain vision is the effect of intelligence and design on the part of the Most High — of the deliberations of that Supreme Council which disposes of all human affairs. " It is for this reason that the rulers of man- kind are ever subjected to a superior force which they cannot control. Their actions pro- duce greater or lesser effects than they in- tended; their counsels have never failed to be attended by unforeseen consequences. Neither could they control the effect which the conse- quences of former revolutions produced upon their actions, nor foresee the course of events destined to follow the measures in which they themselves were actors. He alone who held the thread of human affairs — who knows what was, and is, and is to come — foresaw and pre- destined the whole in his immutable council. "Alexander, in his mighty conquests, in- tended neither to labour for his generals, nor to ruin his royal house by his conquests. When the elder Brutus inspired the Roman people Avith an unbounded passion for free- dom, he little thought that he was implanting in their minds the seeds of that unbridled li- cense, destined one day to induce a tyranny more grievous than that of the Tarquins. When the Coesars flattered the soldiers with a view to their immediate elevation, they had no intention of rearing up a militia of tyrants for their successors and the empire. In a word, there is no human power which has not con- tributed, in spite of itself, to other designs than its own. God alone is able to reduce all things to his own will. Hence it is that every thing appears surprising when we regard only secon- dary causes ; and, nevertheless, all things ad- vance with a regulated pace. Innumerable unforeseen results of human councils con- ducted the fortunes of Rome from Romulus to Charlemagne." — Discours sur I'Hist. Univ. ad fin. It is impossible to dispute the grandeur of the glance Avhich the Eagle of Meaux has cast over human affairs in the ancient world. But without contesting many of his propositions, and, in particular, fully conceding the truth of the important observation, that almost all the greater public actions of men have been at- tended in the end by consequences different from, often the reverse of, those which they intended, we apprehend that the mode of Di- vine superintendence and agency will be found to be more correctly portrayed in the following passage from Blair — an author, the elegance and simplicity of whose diction frequently dis- guises the profoundness of his thoughts, and the correctness of his observations of human affairs : — " The system upon which the Divine Government at present proceeds plainly is, that men's own weakness should be appointed to correct them ; that sinners should be snared in the work of their own hand, and sunk in the pit which themselves have digged ; that the backslider in heart should be filled with his own ways. Of all the plans which could be devised for the government of the world, this approves itself to reason as the Avisest and most worthy of God; so to frame the constitu- tion of things, that the Divine laws should in a manner execute themselves, and carry their sanctions in their own bosom. When the vices oi^ men require punishment to be in- flicted, the Almighty is at no loss for ministers of justice. A thousand instruments of ven- geance are at his command; innumerable arrows are always in his quiver. But such is the profound wisdom of his plan, that no pe- culiar interposals of power are requisite. He has no occasion to step from his throne, and to interrupt the order of nature. With the majesty and solemnity which befits Omnipo- tence, he pronounces, 'Ephraim has gone to his idols : let him alone.' He leaves trans- gressors to their OAvn guilt, and punishment follows of course. Their sins do the Avork of justice. They lift the scourge ; and with every stroke which they inflict on the criminal, they mix this severe admonition, that as he is only reaping the fruit of his own actions, he de- serves all that he suffers." — Blair, iv. 268, Serm. 14. The most eloquent and original of Bossuet's writings is his funeral oration on Henrietta, Queen of England, Avife of the unfortunate Charles I. It Avas natural that such an occa- sion should call forth all his powers, pro- nounced as it was on a princess of the blood- royal of France, Avho had undergone unpa- ralleled calamities AAdth heroic resignation, the fruit of the great religious revolution of the age, against which the French prelate had exerted all the force of his talents. It exhibits accordingly a splendid specimen of genius and capacity; and imbued as aa'c are in this Protestant land Avith the most favourable im- pressions of the consequences of this convul- sion, it is perhaps not altogether tminstructive to observe in what light it was regarded by the greatest intellects of the Catholic AA'orld, — that betAveen the two we may form some estimate of the light in which it Avill be viewed by an impartial posterity. " Christians !" says he, in the exordium of his discourse; "it is not surprising that the memory of a great Queen, the daughter, the Avife, the mother of monarchs, should attract you from all quarters to this melancholy cere- mony; it will bring forcibly before your eyes one of those awful examples which demon- strate to the world the vanity of which it is composed. You Avill see in her single life the extremes of human things ; felicity without bounds, miseries without parallel ; a long and peaceable enjoyment of one of the most noble croAvns in the universe, all that birth and gran- deur could confer that Avas glorious, all that adversity and suffering could accumulate thai was disastrous; the good cause, attended at first with some success, then involved in the most dreadful disasters. Revolutions unheard of, rebellion long restrained— at length reign- ing triumphant; no curb there to license, no laws in force. Majesty itself violated by bloody hands, usurpation, and tyranny, under the nam« 4% ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. of liberty — a fugitive Queen, who can find no retreat in her throe Icingiloms, and was forced to seek in her native countiy a melancholy exile. Nine sea voj'ages undertaken against her will by a Queen, in spite of wintry tein- fjcsts — a throne unworthily overturned, and miraculously re-established. Behold the les- son which God has given to kings ! thus docs He manifest to the world the nothingness of its pomps and its grandeur! If our words fail, if language sinks beneath the grandeur of such a subject, the simple narrative is more touching than aught that words can convey. The heart of a great Queen, formerly elevated by so long a course of prosperity, then steeped in all the bitterness of affliction, will speak in sulficiently touching language; and if it is not given to a private individual to teach the proper lessons from so mournful a catastrophe, Uie King of Israel has supplied the words— * Hear ! Oh ye Great of the Earth !— Take les- sons, ye Rulers of the World !' "But the wise and devout Princess, whose obsequies we celebrate, has not merely been a spectacle exhibited to the world in order that men might learn the counsels of Divine Pro- vidence, and the fatal revolutions of monar- chies. She took counsel herself from the ca- lamities in -which she was involved, while God was instructing kings by her example. It is by giving and withdrawing power that God communicates his lessons to kings. The Queen we mourn has equally listened to the voice of these two opposite monitors. She' has made use, like a Christian, alike of pros- perous and adverse fortune. In the first she was beneficent, in the last invincible; as long as she was fortunate, she let her power be felt only by her unbounded deeds of goodness; when wrapt in miser)', she enriched herself more than ever by the heroic virtues befitting misfortune. For her own good, she has lost that sovereign power which she formerly ex- ercised only for the blessings of her subjects ; and if her friends — if the universal chuich have profited by her prosperities, she herself has profited more from her calamities than from all her previous grandeur. That is the great lesson to be drawn from the ever-memo- rable life of Henrietta Maria of France, Queen of Great Britain. "I need not dwell on the illustrious birth of that Princess ; no rank on earth equals it in lustre. Her virtues have been not less re- markable than her descent. She was endowed with a generosity truly royal; of a truth, it might be said, that she deemed every thing lost which was not given away. Nor were her other virtues less admirable. The faithful depositary of many important complaints and secrets — it was her favourite maxim that princes should observe the same silence as confessors, and exercise the same discretion. In the utmost fury of the Civil Wars never was her word doubled, or her clemency called in question. Who has so nobly exercised that winning art which humbles without lowering •'tself, and confers so graciously liberty, while it cotnmands respect? At once mild yet firm — condescending, yet dignified — she knew at the same time how to convince and persuade, and I to support by reason, rather than enforce by authority. With what prudence did she con« duct herself in circumstances the most ar- duous; if a skilful hand could have saved the i state, hers was the one to have done it. Her ! magnanimity can never be suflicientl}'^ extolled. Fortune had no power over her; neither the evils which she foresaw, nor those by which she was surprised, could lower her courage. What shall I say to her immovable fidelity to the religion of her ancestors 1 She knew well that that attachment constituted the glory of her house, as well as of the whole of France, sole nation in the world which, during the twelve centuries of its existence, has never seen on the throne but the faithful children of the church. Uniformly she declared that no- thing should detach her from the faith of St. Louis. The King, her husband, has pro- nounced upon her the noblest of all eulogiums, that their hearts were in union in all but the matter of religion ; and confirming by his tes- timony the piety of the Queen, that enlightened Prince has made known to all the world at once his tenderness, his conjugal attachment, and the sacred, inviolable fidelity of his in- comparable spouse." All the world must admire the sustained dignity of this noble eulogium; but touching as were the misfortunes, heroic the character, of the unfortunate Henrietta, it more nearly concerns us to attend to the opinion of Bossuet on the great theological conviilsion, in the throes of which she was swallowed up. " When God pennits the smoke to arise from the pits of the abyss which darkens the face of Heaven — that is, when he suffers heresy to arise — when, to punish the scandals of the church, or awaken the piety of the people and their pastors, He permits the darkness of error to deceive the most elevated minds, and to spread abroad throughout the world a haughty chagrin, a disquieted curiosity, a spirit of re- volt, He determines, in his infinite wisdom, the limits Avhich are to be imposed to the pro- gress of error, the stay which is to be put to the sufierings of the church. I do not pretend to announce to you. Christians, the destiny of the heresies of our times, nor to be able to assign the fatal boundary by which God has restrained their course. But if my judgment does not deceive me ; if, recurring to the his- tory of past ages, I rightly apply their experi- ence to the present, I am led to the opinion, and the wisest of men concur in the sentiment, that the days of blindness are past, and that the time is approaching when the true light icill return, " When Henry VIII., a prince in other re- spects so accomplished, was seduced by the passions which blinded Solomon and so many other kings, and began to shake the authority of the Church, the wise Avarned him, that if he stirred that one point, he would throw the whole fabric of government into peril, and in- fuse, in opposition to his wishes, a frightful license into future ages. The wise forewarned him ; but when is passion controlled by wis- dom ; when does not folly smile at its predic- tions! That, however, which a prudent fore- sight could not persuade to men, a ruder in- structor, experience, has compelled them to BOSSUET. 49 believe. All that religion has that is most sa- cred lias been sacrificed ; England has changed so far that it no longer can recognise itself; and, more agitated in its bosom and on its own soil than even the ocean which surrounds it, it has been overwhelmed by a frightful inxm- dation of innumerable absurd sects. Who can predict but what, repenting of its enormous errors concerning Government, it may not ex- tend its reflections still farther, and look back with fond regret to the tranquil condition of re- ligious thought which preceded the convul- sions 1" Amidst all this pomp of language, and this sagacious intermixture of political foresight with religious prepossession, there is one re- flection which necessarily forces itself upon the mind. Bossuet conceived, and conceived justly, that the frightful atrocities into which religious dissension had precipitated the Eng- lish people would produce a general reaction against the theological fervour from which they had originated; and that the days of ex- travagant fervour were numbered, from the very extent of the general suffering which its aberrations had occasioned. In arriving at this conclusion, he correctly reasoned from the past to the present; and foretold a decline in false opinion, from the woful consequences which Providence had attached to its continu- ance. Yet how widely did he err when he imagined that the days of the Reformation were numbered, or that England, relapsing into the quiet despotism of former days, was to fall back again into the arms of the Eternal Church ! At that very moment the broad and deep foundations of British freedom were in the act of being laid, and that power was aris- ing, destined in future ages to be the bulwark of the Protestant faith, the vehicle of pure un- defiled religion to the remotest corners of the earth. The great theological convulsions of the sixteenth century were working out their appropriate fruits; a new world was peopling by its energy, and rising into existence from its spirit; and from the oppressed and dis- tracted shores of England those hosts of emi- grants were embarking for distant regions, who were destined, at no remote period, to spread the Church of England and the Pro- testant faith through the countless millions of the American race. The errors, indeed the passions, the absurdities of that unhappy pe- riod, as Bossuet rightly conjectured, have passed away; the Fifth Monarchy men no longer disturb the plains of England; the chants of the Covenanters are no longer heard on the mountains of Scotland ; transferred to the faithful record of histoi'y or the classic pages of romance, these relics of the olden time only furnish a heartstirring subject for the talents of the historian or the genius of the novelist. But the human mind never falls back, though it often halts in its course. Ves- tigia nvUa retrorsum is the law of social affairs not less than of the fabled descent to the shades below; the descendants of the Puritans and the Covenanters have abjured the absur- dities of their fathers, but they have not re- lapsed into the chains of Popery. Purified of its corruptions by the indignant voice of in- surgent reason, freed from its absurdities by the experience of the calamities with which they were attended, the fair form of Catholic Christimnly has arisen in the British Isles; imbued with the spirit of the universal Church, but destitute of the rancour of its deluded sec- taries; borrowing from the religion of Rome its charity, adopting from the Lutheran Church its morality; sharing with reason its intellec- tual triumphs, inheriting from faith its spiri- tual constancy, not disdaining the support of ages, and yet not excluding the light of time; glorying in the antiquity of its descent, and, at the same time, admitting the necessity of recent reformation; it has approached as near as the weakness of humanity, and the limited extent of our present vision will permit, to that model of ideal perfection which, veiled in the silver robes of innocence, the faithful trust is one day to pervade the earth. And if pi^e- sent appearances justify any presentiments as to future events, the destinies of this church are worthy of the mighty collision of antiqui- ty with revolution, of the independence of thought with the reverence for authoi'ity, from which it arose, and the vast part assigned to it in human affairs. The glories of the Eng- lish nation, the triumphs of the English navy, have been the pioneers of its progress ; the in- fidel triumphs of the French Revolution, the victorious career of Napoleon, have minister- ed to its success; it is indissolubly wound up with the progress of the Anglo-American race; it is spreading over the wilds of Australia; slowly but steadily it is invading the primeval deserts of Africa. It shares the destiny of the language of Milton, Shakspeare, and Scott; it must grow with the growth of a colonial em- pire which encircles the earth ; the invention of printing, the discovery of steam navigation, arc the vehicles of its mercies to mankind! " I have spoken," says Bossuet, " of the license into which the human mind is thrown, when once the foundations of religion are shaken, and the ancient landmarks are re- moved. " But as the subject of the present discourse affords so unique and memorable an example for the instruction of all ages of the lengths to which such furious passions will lead the peo- ple, I must, in justice to vay subject, recur to the original sources of error, and conduct you, step by step, from the first contempt and dis- regard of tire church to the final atrocities in which it has plunged mankind. " The fountain of the whole evil is to be found in those in the last centurj', who at- tempted reformation by means of schism ; finding the church an invincible barrier against all their innovations, theyfeltlhemselves under the necessity of overturning it. Thus the decrees of the Councils, the doctrines of the fathers, the traditions of the Holy See, and of the Catholic Church, have been no longer con- sidered as sacred and inviolable. Every one has made for himself a tribunal, where he rendered himself the arbiter of his own belief; and yet the innovators did impose some limits to the changes of thought by restraining them within the bounds of holy writ, as if the mo- ment that the principle is once admitted tha 50 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. every believer may P"' what interpretations apoii its passages he pleases, and bnoy liiin- eelf up with the belief that the Holy Spirit has dictateil to him his own peculiar explanation, there is no individual who may not at once conceive himself authorized to worship his own inventions, to consecrate his thoughts, and call the wanderings of his imagination divine inspiration. From the moment this fatal doctrine was introduced, it was distinctly foreseen by the wise that license of thought bj:.ig now emancipated from all control, sects would multiply a ancient, possessed ven,'much the . . dominion of Russia in Europe in time*. It stretched from the Baltic to ^' 'isko to Bohemia; and in the whole Scythia use of nations, from i who so long pressed ihrew the Roman empire. ..• in every age been cele- hcroic valour : they twice, in "I" ■ irx, raptured the ' 'Ik- pf, I, narration on, were but ..;'il five centu- Mce of the Pcdish M ■ . Placed ' 'ion, they an inva- hey ever whirh they had to "' • .the Cossacks ibits and pre- wrrr 1, ii.^, ihosf on r or W 4««i«i« tin i'aiwii ww. datory life disdained the restraints of regnla* government. When we read the accounts of the terrible struggles they maintained with the "•real insurrection of these formidable hordes under Bogdan, in the 17th century, Ave are transported to the days of Scythian warfare, and recognise the features of that dreadful invasion of the Sarmatian tribes, which the genius of Marius averted from the Roman republic. Nor has the military spirit of the people de- clined in modern times. The victories of Sobieski, the deliverance of Vienna, seem rather the fiction of romance than the records of real achievement. No victor}'- so glorious as that of Kotzim had been gained by Chris- tendom over the Saracens since the triumphs of Richard on the field of Ascalon : And the tide of Mahommedan conquest would have rolled resistlessly over the plains of German}-, even in the reign of Louis XIV., if it had not been arrested by the Polish hero under the walls of Vienna. Napoleon said it was the peculiar quality of the Polanders to form sol- diers more rapidly than any other people. And their exploits in the Italian and Spanish campaigns justified the high eulogium and avowed partiality of that great commander. No swords cut deeper than theirs in the Rus- sian ranks during the campaign of 1812, and alone, amidst universal defection, they main- tained their faith inviolate in the rout at Leip- sic. But for the hesitation of the French em- peror in restoring their independence, the whole strength of the kingdom would have been roused on the invasion of Russia; and had this been done, had the Polish monarchy formed the support of French ambition, the history of the Avorld might have been changed; "From Fate's dark book one leaf been torn, And Flodden had been Bannockburn." How, then, has it happened that a countiy of such immense extent, inhabited by so martial a people, whose strength on great occasions was equal to such achievements, should in every age have been so unfortunate, that their victories should have led to no result, and their valour so often proved inadequate to save their country from dismemberment 1 The plaintive motto, Qunwodo Lapsus; Quid feci, may with still more justice be applied to the Ibrtuncs of Poland than the fall of the Court- enays. " Always combating," says Salvandy, " frequently victorious, they never gained an accession of territory, and were generally glad to terminate a glorious contest by a cession of the ancient provinces of the re- public." Superficial observers will answer, that it was the elective form of government; their unfortunate situation in the midst of military powers, and the absence of any chain of moun« lains to form the refuge of unfortunate patriot' POLAND. 53 tsm. But a closer examination will demon- strate that these causes were not sufficient to explain the phenomenon ; and that the series of disasters which have so long overwhelmed the monarchy, have arisen from a more per- manent and lasting cause than either their physical situation or elective government. The Polish crown has not always been elective. For two hundred and twenty years they were governed by the race of the Jagellons v/ith as much regularity as the Plantagenets of England ; and yet, dui'ing that dynasty, the losses of the republic were fully as great as in the subsequent periods. Prussia is as flat, and incomparably more sterile than Poland, and, with not a third of the territory, it is equally exposed to the ambition of its neigh- bours : Yet Prussia, so far from being the subject of partition, has steadily increased in territory and population, and now numbers fifteen millions of souls in her dominion. The fields of Poland, as rich and fertile as those of Flanders, seem the prey of every Invader, while the patriotism of the Flemings has studded their plains with defensive fortresses which have secured their independence, not- withstanding the vicinity of the most ambitious and powerful monarchy in Europe. The real cause of the never-ending disasters of Poland, is to be found in the democratic equalitij, which, from the remotest ages, has prevailed in the country. The elective form of government was the consequence of this principle in their constitution, which has de- scended to them from Scythian freedom, and has entailed upon the state disasters worse than the whirlwind of Scythian invasion. "It is a mistake," says Salvandy, "to sup- pose that the representative form of govern- ment was found in the woods of Germany. What was. found in the woods Avas Polish equality, which has descended unimpaired in all the parts of that vast monarchy to the present times.* It was not to our Scythian ancestors, but the early councils of the Christian church, that we are indebted for the first example of representative assemblies." In these words of great and philosophic importance is to be found the real origin of the disasters of Poland. The principle of government, from the earli- est times in Poland, was, that every free man had an equal right to the administration of public affairs, and that he was entitled to ex- ercise this right, not by representation, but in person. The result of this was, that the whole freemen of the country constituted the real government; and the diets were attended by an hundred thousand horsemen ; the great ma- jority of whom were, of course, ignorant, and in necessitous circumstances, while all were penetrated with an equal sense of their im- portance as membei's of the Polish state. The convocation of these tumultuous assemblies was almost invariably the signal for murder and disorder. Thirty or forty thousand lackeys, in the service of the nobles, but still possess- ing the rights of freemen, followed their mas- ers to the place of meeting, and Avere ever .eady to support their ambition by military * Salvandy, vol. i. Tableau HistDriq le. violence, while the unfl tunate natives, eaw up by such an enormous assemblage of armed men, regarded the convocation of the citizens in the same light as the inhabitants of the Grecian city did the invasion of Xerxes, whose hordes had consumed every thing eatable in their territory at breakfast, Avhen they re- turned thanks to the gods that he had not dined in their neighbourhood, or every living creature Avould have perished. So far did the Poles carry this equality among all the free citizens, that by an original and fundamental law, called the Libcnnn Veto, any one member of tlie diet, by simply inter- posing his negative, could stop the election of the sovereign, or any other measure the most essential to the public Avelfare. Of course, in. so immense a multitude, some were always to be found fractious or venal enough to exercise this dangerous power, either from individual perversity, the influence of external corrup- tion, or internal ambition; and hence tire numerous occasions on which diets, assembled for the most important purposes, were broken up without having come to any determination, and the Republic left a prey to anarchy, at the time when it stood most in need of the unani- mous support of its members. It is a striking proof how easily men are deluded by this phantom of general equality, when it is re- collected that this ruinous privilege has, not only in every age, been clung to as the Magna CVioc/a of Poland, but that the native historians, recounting distant events, speak of any in- fringement upon it as the most fatal measure that could possibly be figured, to the liberties and welfare of the countrj^ All human institutions, however, must be subject to some check, which renders it practicable to get through business on urgent occasions, in spite of individual opposition. The Poles held it utterly at variance with every principle of freedom to bind any free man by a law to which he had not consented. The principle, that the majority could bind the minority, seemed to them inconsistent with the most elementary ideas of liberty. To get quit of the difficulty, they commonly massacred tlic recusant ; and this appeared, in their eyes, a much less serious violation of freedom than out-voting him ; because, said they, instances of violence are few, and do not go beyond the individual sufferers ; but when once the rulers establish that the majority can compel the minority to yield, no man has any security against the violation of his freedom. Extremes meet. It is curious to observe how exactly the violation of freedom by po- pular folly coincides in its eflect with its ex- tinction by despotic power. The bow-string in the Seraglio, and assassination at St. Peters- burg, are the limitations on arbitrary power in these despotic states. Popular murders were the means of restraining the exorbitant liberty of the Poles within the limits necessary lor the maintenance of the forms even of regular government. Strange, as Salvandy has well observed, that the nation the most jealous ot its liberty, should, at the same time adhere to a custom of all others the most dcsii active to freedom ; and that, to avoid the government ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. .if pn*", Ihry should submit to the despotism j/ail! ll mu this nripitijil and fatal passion for / r ■ n cviTV B^c proved fatal <• — wiiicii has paralyzed ]de, and all the en- ; — and remlered the niMion III Europe the most un- J lie measures of its government f the unstable and vacillating cha- -'• • - ' - ■ •■ ' ' Hursts of mIs of dejec- > in the objects 1 .cd it inipracli- ; ; --lie any steady object, or adhere, ill ihe varieties of fortune, to one uni- ■rm for the cood of the state. Their ' Ii'd the contests in La ic afler Ihe most glorious ■IIS army was dissolved, ..iiiJerin;^ with a few fol- 1 the woods. At the battle of Kotzim, - nmanded 40,000 men, the most which for centuries Poland had I ; at their head, he stormed I nchments, though defended < veterans, and 300 pieces of cannon ; 1 that michly host, slew 50,000 men, ed the Polish ensisrns in triumph to the Danube. But while Europe .!h his praises, and expected the cr of the Greek empire from his -, his anny dissolved — the troops re- lo their homes — and the invincible r was barely able, with a few thou- ,. to keep the field. on the ironliers of Europe and Asia, '• 1 rharaeter and history have partaken larprly of the eflects of Ihe institutions of both '' • nrters of the globe. Their passion itv. their spirit of freedom, their na- 1 ''tapes, unite them to European 1 ■ ; their unstable fortune, per- p'-iutl vacillation, and chequered annals, par- take of the character of Asiatic adventure. While the Plates by whom they are surrounded, have •.harrd in the steady progress of Euro- pran nvilization. the Polish monarchy has i by the extraordinary vicis- I rn story. Elevated to the inng periods of heroic adventure, it to nothing upon the death of a single • rppublic which had recently carried • ■ the neighl)ouring capi- iig for its existence with ; and the bulwark of ' '• "as in the next razed i^e of this vacil- • Consequences d, we shall find iliieh ajipears in I y, and of which M. ••in,ha.i given a pow- .1 ■lire; »o tr ^t prinei's," • calumnies i' Ihe follies of I all those who iired. in IVdand, ■ •I j'loi. . un;; power. Nothing is more extraordinary than to hear the modem annalists of that unfortunate people, whatevet their country or doctrine may be, mechanically repeal .ill the national outcry against what they call their despotic tyrants. Facts speak in vain against such prejudices. In the eyes of the Poles, nothing was worthy of preservation in their country but liberty and equality ; — a high- sounding expression, which the French Eevo- lution had not the glory of inventing, nor iis authors the wisdom to apply more judiciously " Contrary to what has occurred everywhere else in the world, the Poles have never been at rest but under the rule of feeble monarchs. Great and vigorous kings were uniformly the first to perish ; they have always sunk under vain attempts to accustom an independent no- bility to the restraints of authority, or soften to their slaves the yoke of bondage. Thus the royal authority, -which elsewhere expanded on the ruins of the feudal system, has in Poland only become weaker with the progress of time. All the efforts of its monarchs to enlarge their prerogative have been shattered against a compact, independent, courageous body of freemen, Avho, in resisting such attempts, have never either been weakened by division nor intimidated by menace. In their passion for equality, in their jealous independence, they were unwilling even to admit any distinction between each other; they long and haughtily rejected the titles of honour of foreign states, and even till the last age, refused to recognise those hereditary distinctions and oppressive privileges, Avhich are now so fast disappear- ing from the face of society. They even went so far as to insist that one, in matters of de- liberation, should be equal to all. The ci'own was thus constantly at war with a democracy of nobles. The dynasty of the Piasts strove Avith much ability to create, in the midst of that democracy, a iew leading families; by the side of those nobles, a body of burghers. These things, difficult in all states, were there impossible. An hereditary dynasty, always stormy and often interrupted, was unfit for the persevering efforts requisite for such a revolu- tion. In other states the monarchs pursued an uniform policy, and their subjects were va- cillating; there the people were steady, and the crown changeable." — L 71. " In other states, time had everyn-here in- troduced the hereditary descent of honours and power. Hereditary succession was established from the throne to the smallest fief, from the reciprocal necessity of subduing the van- quished people, and securing to each his share in the conquests. In Poland, on the other hand, the waywoods, or warlike chieftains, the magistrates and civil authorities, the governors of ca.stlcs and provinces, so far from founding an aristocracy by establishing the descent of their honours or ofiices in their families, were seldom even nominated by the king. Their authority, especially that of the Pafatins, ex- citoil equal umbrage in the sovereign who shoukl have ruled, as the nobles Avho should have obeyed them. There was thus authority ami order nowhere in the state. "It IS not surprising that such men should unite to the pride which could bear nothing POLAND. above, the tyranny which conld spai-e nothing below them. In the dread of being compelled to share their power with their inferiors ele- vated by riches or intelligence, they affixed a stigma on every useful profession as a mark of servitude. Their maxim was, that nobility of blood was not lost by indigence or domestic service, but totally extinguished by commerce or industry. This policy perpetually withheld from the great body of serfs the use of arms, both because they had learned to fear, but still continued to despise them. In fine, jealous of every species of superiority as a personal out- rage, of every authority as an usurpation, of every labour as a degradation, this society was at variance with every principle of human prosperity. " Weakened in this manner in their external contests, by their equality not less than their tyranny, inferior to their neighbours in number and discipline, the Poles were the only warlike people in the world to whom victory never gave either peace or conquest. Incessant con- tests with the Germans, the Hungarians, the pirates of the north, the Cossacks of the Ukraine, the Osmanlis, occupy their whole annals ; but never did the Polish eagles ad- vance the frontiers of the republic. Poland saw Moravia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, es- cape from its rule, as Bohemia and Mecklen- burg had formerly done, without ever being awakened to the necessity of establishing a cen- tral government sufficiently strong to coerce and protect so many discordant materials. She was destined to drink to the last dregs the bitter consequences of a pitiless aristocracy and a senseless equality." "Vainly did Time, whose ceaseless course, by breaking through that fierce and oppressive equality, had succeeded where its monarchs had failed, strive to introduce a better order of things. Poland was destined, in all the ages of its history, to dilfer from all the other European states. With the progress of wealth, a race of burghers at length sprung up — an aristocracy of wealth and possessions arose ; but both, contrary to the genius of the people, perished before they arrived at maturity. The first was speedily overthrown ; in the convul- sion consequent upon the establishment of the last, the national independence was de- stroyed."— I. 74. Of the practical consequences of this fatal passion for equality in the legislature and the form of government, our author gives the fol- lowing curious account: — "The extreme difficulty of providing food for their comitia of an hundred thousand citi- zens on horseback, obliged the members of the diet to terminate their deliberations in a few days, or rather to separate, after having devoured all the food in the country, com- menced a civil war, and determined nothing. The constant recurrence of such disasters at length led to an attempt to introduce territorial deputies, invested with full power to carry on the ordinary and routine business of the state. But so adverse was any delegation of authority to the original nature of Polish independence, that this beneficial institution never was es- 'ablished in Poland but in the most incom- plete manner. Its introduction corrected none of the ancient abuses. The king was still the president of tumultuous assemblies ; sur- rolmded by obstacles on every side ; controlled by generals and ministeiy not of his own se- lection ; obliged to defend the acts of a cabinet which he could not control, against the crie; of a furious diet. And th^\se diets, which united, sabre in hand, under the eye of the sovereign, and still treated of all the important afiairs of the state — of war and peace, the election of a sovereign, the formation of laws — which gave audience to ambassadors, and administered justice in important cases — were still the Champs de Mars of the northern tribes, and partook to the very last of all the vices of the savage character. There was the same confusion of powers, the same ele- ments of disorder, the same license to them- selves, the same tyranny over others. " This attempt at a representative govern- ment was destructive to the last shadow of the royal authority; the meetings of the deputies became fixed and frequent; the power of the sovereign was lost without any permanent body arising to receive it in his room. The system of deputations made slow progress ; and in several provinces was never admitted. General diets, where the whole nation as- sembled, became more rare, and therefore more perilous; and as they were convoked only on great occasions, and to discuss weighty interests, the fervour of passion was superadded to the inexperience of business. "Speedily the representative assemblies be- came the olDJect of jealousy on the part of this democratic race ; and the citizens of the re- public sought only to limit the powers which they had conferred on their representatives. Often the jealous multitude, terrified at the powers with which they had invested the de- puties, Avere seized -wilh a sudden panic, and hastened together from all quarters with their arras in their hands to watch over their pro- ceedings. Such assemblies were styled ' Diets under the Buckler.' But generally they re- stricted and qualified their powers at the mo- ment of election. The electors confined their parliaments to a circle of limited questions: gave them obligatory directions; and held, after every session, xvhat they ccdlcd post-eomilial diets; the object of which was to exact from every deputy a rigid account of the execution of his mandate. Thus every question of importance ivas, in effect, decided in the provinces before it icas debated in the yiational assembly. And as unanimity was still considered essential to a decision, the passing of any legislative act became impossible when there was any variance between the instruc- tions to the deputies. Thus the majority were compelled to disregard the protestations of the minority; and, to guard against that tyranny, the only remedy seemed to establish, m iavour of the outvoted minority, the right ol civil war. Confederations were establisiied ; armed leagues, formed of discontented nobles, whc elected a marshal or prtsident, and oppose(^ decrees to decrees, force to force, diet to dici. tribune to tribune; and had alternatdy the king for its leader and its captive. What de- plorable institutions, which opened to all .hfl ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. dMcontrntrJ a Irpal cliaiincl for spreading •narchv ilimiish ihiir country ! The only as- ( lial ihc valour of the Polish I reded in concealing these monal dclccu in their institutions. One vuuld have imagined ihal a nation, under mich custonwi, could not exist a year; and yet it j.crmed never weary either of victories or fullv."— I. 116. .N - necessary for the length of Ihi ; for they are not only iHus- iralivc oi ihe causes of the uniform disasters of Poland, but eminently instructive as to the tendency of democratic institutions all over the world. There is no danger that the inhabitants of r ! or France will llork in person to the I , ..... ^ of Parliament, and establish diets of two or three hundred thousand freemen, with ' -' ' y their sides ; but there is a very great ihat they will adopt the democratic of their representatives, and fix them . fixed instructions to a course of con- duct which will both render nugatory all the advantages of a deliberative assembly, and sow the seeds of dissension, jealousy, and civil war between the different members of the state. This is the more to be apprehended, because this evil was felt in the strongest manner in France during the progress of the Revolution, and has appeared in America most remarkably even during the brief period of its political existence. The legislators of America are not in any sense fiaimiiicn : they are merely delegates, bound to obej' the directions of their constitu- ents, and sent there to forward the individual interest of the province, district, or borough which they represent. Their debates are lan- guid and uninteresting; conducted Avith no idea whatever of convincing, but merely of showin? the constituents of each member what he had done for his daily hire of seven dollars. The Constituents Assembly met, with cahicrt or instructions to the deputies from all the elerti.rs ; and so much did this jealousy of the legislature increase with the progress of the movrmrnts in France, that the surest road (o popularity with the electors was soon found lo be, the most abject professions of submis- sion to their will. Every one knows how long and vehemently annual parliaments have been «!eui:iiMl.J i,y the English radicals, in order to give ihcin an opportunity of constantly exer- cising this surveillance over their representa- livcs ; and how many members of the present HouKe of Commons are under a positive • their constituents on more than one "US question. It is interesting to ob- wrvc how much mankind, under all varieties of climale, situation, and circumstances, are (fovemed bv Ihe same principles; and to trace •*"■ "f '*ie same causes in Polish an- *"■< 'h revolutions, American selfish- ne*--, .111(1 British democracy. >N liocver considers the matter dispassion- ately, and attends lo ihe lessons of history, must arrive nl the conclusion, that this demo- crafic spirit cannot co-exisi with n-giilar go- *''"'' ii-iiK-nal indepeiiileiire in ancient •'«'•' II'. It P.dish anarchy js the neces- sary prelude in all such communities to Mo* covite oppression. The reason is eternal, and being founded in the nature of things, must be the same in all ages. When the true demo- cratic spirit is once generally diffused, men invariably acquire such an inordinate jealousy of tl>cir ri'krs, that they thwart all measures, even of the most obvious and undeniable utili- ty; and by a perpetual change of governors, o-ratify their own equalizing spirit, at the ex- pense of the best interests of the state. This disposition appears at present in France, and England, in the rapid changes of administra- tion which have taken place within the last few years, to the total destruction of any uni- formity of government, or the prosecution of any systematic plan for the public good: it appears in America in the execrable system of rotation of office, in other words, of the ex- pulsion of every man from official situations, the moment he becomes qualified to hold them, which a recent able observer has so well ex- posed ;* it appeared in Poland in the uniform weakness of the executive, and periodical re- turns of anarchy, which rendered them, in despite of their native valour, unfortunate in every contest, and at last led to the partition of the republic. Never was there a truer observation, than that wherever the tendency of prevailing in- stitutions is hurtful, there is an tinder-current perpetually flowing, destined to correct them. As this equalising and democratic spirit is utterly destructive to the best interests of so- ciet}'*, and the happiness of the very people who indulge in it, so by the wisdom of nature, it leads rapidly and certainly to its own de- struction. The moment that it became para- mount in the Koman Republic, it led to the civil convulsions which brought on the despo- tism of the Ccesars ; its career w-as rapidly cut short in France by the sword of Napoleon ; it exterminated Poland from the book of nations; it threatens to close the long line of British greatness ; it will convulse or subjugate Ame- rica, the moment that growing republic is brought in contact with warlike neighbours, or finds the safety-valve of the back settle- ments closed against the escape of turbulent multitudes. The father of John Sobieski, Avhose estates lay in the Ukraine, has left a curious account of the manners and habits of the Cossacks in his time, which was about 200 years ago. "The great majorit}'," said he, " of these wan- dering tribes, think of nothing but the aftairs of their little families, and encamp, as it were, in the midst of the towns Avhich belong to the crown or the noblesse. They interrupt the ennui of repose by frequent assemblies, and their comilia are generally civil wars, often at- tended by profuse bloodshed. It is there that they choose their hetman, or chief, by accla- mation, followed by throwing their bearskin caps in the air. Such is the inconstancy in the multitude, that they frequently destroy their own work ; but as long as the hetman remains in power, he has the right of life and death. The town of Tretchmiron, in Kiovia, is the Captain Hall. , POLAND. 57 arseL il of their warlike implements and their treasv re. There is deposited the booty taken by th'^ ir pirates in Romelia and Asia Minor; and taere are also preserved, with religious care, the immunities granted to their nation by thf» republic. There are displayed the standards which the king sends them, when- ever they take up arms for the service of the republic. It is round this royal standard that the nation assemble in their comitia. The het- man there does not presume to address the multitude but with his head uncovered, with a respeclfvil air, ready to exculpate himself from all the charges brought against him, and to solicit humbly his share of the spoils taken from the enemies. These fierce peasants are passionately fond of war; few are acquainted with the use of the musket ; the pistol and sabre are their ordinary weapons. Thanks to their light and courageous squadrons, Poland can face the infantry of the most powerful na- tions on earth. They are as serviceable in re- treat as in success ; when discomfited, they form, with their chariots ranged in several lines in a circular form, an entrenched camp, to which no other fortifications can be com- pared. Behind that tabor, they defy the at- tacks of the most formidable enemy." Of the species of troops who composed the Polish army, our author gives the following curious account, — a striking proof of the na- tional weakness which follows the fatal pas- sion for equality, which formed their grand national characteristic : " Five different kinds of soldiers composed the Polish army. There was, in the first place, the mercenaries, composed of Hungarians, Wallachians, Cossacks, Tartars, and Germans, who would have formed the strength and nucleus of the army, had it not been that on the least delay in their payments, they invari- ably turned their arms against the govern- ment : the national troops, to M'hose mainte- nance a fourth of the national revenue was devoted : the volunteers, under which name were included the levies of the great nobles, and the ordinary guards which they maintained in time of peace: the Pospolitc, that is, the array of the whole free citizens, who, after three summonses from the king, were obliged to come forth under the banners of their re- spective palatines, but only to remain a few months in the field, and could not be ordered beyond the frontiers. This last unwieldy body, however brave, was totally deficient in discipline, and in general served only to mani- fest the weakness of the republic. It was rjeldom called forth but in civil wars. The legions of valets, grooms, and drivers, who encumbered the other force, may be termed a fifth branch of the militai-y force of Poland; but these fierce retainers, naturally warlike and irascible, injured the army more by their pillage and dissensions than they assisted it by their numbers. "All these different troops were deficient in equipment ; obliged to provide themselves with every thing, and to collect their subsist- ence by their own authority, they were encum- bered with an incredible quantity of baggage- Wagons, destined, for the most part, less to convey provisions than carrj off plunder They had no corps of engineers; the artillery, composed of a few pieces of small calibre, had no other officers than a handful of French adventurers, upon whose adherence to the republic implicit reliance could not be placed. The infantry were few in number, composed entirely of the mercenary and. royal troops, but this arm was regarded with contempt by the haughty nobility. The foot soldiers Avere employed in digging ditches, throwing bridges, and cutting down forests, rather than actual warfare. Sobieski was exceedingly desirous of having in his camp a considerable force of infantry ; but two invincible obstacles pre vented it, — the prejudices of the countrj-, am the penury of the royal treasury. " The whole body of the Pospolite, the vo- lunteers, the valets cVarmee, and a large part of the mercenaries and national troops, served on horseback. The heavy cavalry, in particu- lar, constituted the strength of the armies ; there were to be found united, riches, splen- dour, and number. They were divided into cuirassiers and hussars ; the former clothed in steel, man and horse bearing casque and cuirass, lance and sabre, bows and carabines; the latter defended only by a twisted hauberk, which descended from the head, over the shoulders and breast, and armed with a sabre and pistol. Both were distinguished by the splendour of their dress and equipage, and the number and costly array of their mounted ser- vants, accoutred in the most bizarre manner, with huge black plumes, and skins of ,bears and other wild beasts. It was the boast of this body, that they were composed of men, all measured, as they expressed it, by the same standard; that is, equal in nobility, equally enjoying the rights to obey only their God and their swords, and equally destined, perhaps, to step one day into the throne of the Piasls and the Jagellons. The hussars and cuirassiers were called Towarzir:, that is, companions; they called each other by that name, and they were designated in the same way by the sove- reign, whose chief boast would be Primus inter pares, the first among equals." — I. 129. With so motley and discordant a force, it is not surprising that Poland was unable to make head against the steady ambition and regular forces of the military monarchies with which it was surrounded. Its history accordingly exhibits the usual feature of all democratic societies — occasional bursts of patriotism, and splendid efforts followed by dej.ection, anarchy, and misrule. It is a stormy night illuminated by occasional flashes of lightning, never by the steady radiance of the morning san. One of the most glorious of these flashes is the victory of Kotzim, the first great achieve- ment of John Sobieski. "Kotzim is a strong castle, situated four leagues from Kamaniek, on a rocky projection which runs into the Dneiper, impregnable from the river, and surrounded on the other side by deep and rocky ravines. A bridge thrown over one of them, united it to the en- trenched camp, Avhere Hussein Pacha had posted his army. That camp, defended by ancient fieldworks, extended along the banks ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. of Ui*" Pnriper. ami was puanlcd on the side of M , ihc sole nCj^-cssible qnaitcr, by prr, >ii in ihc solui rock, and inipass- k -s. Tl»e art of the Ollomans had me natural blrcngth of the jiobiiion; , ..viT ulucli, after the example of the I • V colony was intended to J .1 to a firfat distance by canalr. and .inches, whose banks were .strenslh- enfd by palisades. A powerful arlilieiy de- ffndcl all the avenues to the camp, and there ■: . ut tents, the Turkish . . • thousand veterans, when iiiry were ^u(ldL■llly startled by the sijrht of llie Polish banners, which moved in splendid arrajr round their eutrcnchments, and took up a position almost under the fire of their ariil- len*. "I iiimating to the recollec- tion ' ■ 111 host. Fifty years be- for«, James Sobicski had conquered a glorious peace under the walls of that very castle : and airainsl its ramparts, after the disaster of the i: ir of the young Sultan Osman ; if in vain. Now the sides were changt-d; the Turks held the entrenched camp, and the army of the sou of James So- bieski filled the plain. "The smaller force had now to make the assault; the larger army was entrenched be- hind ramparts better fortified, better armed with cannon, than those which Sultan Osmau and his three hundred thousand Mussulmen soutrht in vain to wrest from the feeble army of Wladislaus. The Turks were now grown gray in victories, and the assailants were young troops, for the most part ill armed, as- sembled in haste, destitute of resources, maga- zines, or provisions — worn out with the fatigues and the privations of a winter campaign. Deep i' ' ' ihc rocky bed of torrents, precipitous \ rock, composed the field of battle on wiiicii liicy were called on to combat an enemj'^ reposing tranquilly under the laurels of vic- tor)', beneath sumptuous tents, and behind ramparts defended by an array of three hun- dred pieces of cannon. The night passed on the Polish side in mortal disquietude; the mind of the general, equally with the soldiers, was overwhelmed with anxiety. The enter- Crisc which he had undertaken seemed above uman strength; the army had no chance of J ■ It in victory, and there was too much : '.. fear that treachery, or division in I ;'s, would snatch it from his grasp, . down his name with disgrace to 1 - i'-skl alone was inaccessible to fear. When the troops wotp drawn forth on the fol- 1 ' id Hetmau of Liihu- V dfspcrale, and his r n to retreat. ' Hclrcal,' cried the J' ,. .. iicro, 'is impossible. We should only find a disfrraccful death in the morasses with ^■hich \v " ^ .1 frw leagues from h'"'"'-: ' • it at the foot of the 'Miircnrhnients. Hut what ground is ' r apprehension! Nothing disquiets Btc Irjt what I hear from you. Your menaces are mir (.i,ly danger. I am confident you will not eic.iiii; ihcin. If Poland is to be cllaced from the book of nations, you will m t allow our children to exclaim, that' if a Paz had not lied, they would not have wanted a country.' Vanquished by the magnanimity of Sobieski, and the cries of Sapieha and Kadzivvik, the Lithuanian chief promised not to desert his countrymen. " [Sobieski then ranged his faltering batta- lions in order of battle, and the Turks made preparations to receive behind their entrench- ments the seemingly hopeless attack of the • Christians. Their forces were ranged in a semicircle, and their forty field-pieces advanced in front, battered in breach the palisades which were placed across the approaches to the Turkish palisades. Kouski, the commander of the artillery, performed under the superior fire of the enemy, prodigies of valour. The breaches were declared practicable in the evening; and when night came, the Christian forces of the tM'o principalities of Walachia and Moldavia deserted the camp of the Infi- dels, to range themselves nnder the standard of the cross ; a cheering omen, for troops never desert but to the side which they ima- gine will prove successful. " The weather was dreadful ; the snow fell in great quantities ; the ranks were obstructed by its drifts. In the midst of that severe tem- pest, Sobieski kept his troops, under arms the whole night. In the morning the}' M-ere buried in the snoAV, exhausted by cold and sufieriug. Thsn he gave the signal of attack. ' Com- panions, said he, in passing through the lines, his clothes, his hair, his mustaches covered with icicles, 'I deliver to you an enemy already half vanquished. You have suffered, the Turks are exhausted. The troops of Asia can never endure the hardships of the last twenty-four hours. The cold has conquered them to our hand. Whole troops of them are already sink- ing under their sufferings, while we, inured to the climate, are only animated by it to fresh exertions. It is for us to save the republic from shame and slavery. Soldiers of Poland, recollect that j^ou fight for your country, and that Jesus Christ combats for you.' " Sobieski had thrice heard mass since the rising of the sun. The day was the fete of St. Martin of Tours. The chiefs founded great hopes on his intercession : the priests, who had followed their masters to the field of battle, traversed the ranks, recounting the actions of that great apostle of the French, and all that they might expect from his known zeal for the faith. He was a Slavonian by birth. Could there be any doubt, then, that the Christians would triumph when his glory was on that day in so peculiar a manner interested in perfoim ing miracles in their favour] "An accidental circumstance gave the highest appearance of truth to these ideas The Grand Marshal, who had just completed his last rcconnoissance of the enemy's lines, returned with his countenance illuminated by the presage of victory — 'My companions,' he exclaimed, ' in half an hour Ave shall be lodged under these gilded tents.' In fact, he had dis- covered that the point against which he in- tended to direct his principal attack was not defended but by a few troops berumbed by the POLAND. 59 cold. He immediately made several feigned assaults to distract the attetitioii of the enemy, and directed against the palisades, by which he intended to enter, the fire of a battery already erected. The soldiers immediately recollected that the preceding evening they had made the utmost eflbrts to draw the cannon beyond that point, but that a power apparently more than human had chained them to the spot, from whence now they easily beat down the obstacles to the army's ad- vance, and cleared the road to victory. Who was so blind as not to see in that circum- stance the miraculous intervention of Gregory of Tours ! " At that moment the army knelt down to re- ceive the benediction of Father Pizeborowski, confessor of the Grand Hetman ; and his prayer being concluded, Sobieski, dismount- ing from his horse, ordered his infantry to move forward to the assault of the newly- op<;ned breach in the palisades, he himself. sw ord in hand, directing the way. The armed valets followed rapidly in their footsteps. That courageous band were never afraid to tread the path of c'anger in the hopes of plunder. In a moment the ditches were filled up and passed ; with one bound the troops arrived at the foot of the rocks. The Grand Hetman, after that first success, had hardly time to re- mount on horseback, when, on the heights of the entrenched camp, were seen the standard of the cross and the eagle of Poland. Petri- kowski and Denholf, of the royal race of the Piasts, had first mounted the ramparts, and raised their ensigns. At this joyful sight, a hurrah of triumph rose from the Polish ranks, and rent the heavens ; the Turks were seized with consternation; they had been confounded at that sudden attack, made at a time when thej^ imagined the severity of the weather had made the Christians renounce their perilous enterprise. Such was the confusion, that but for the extraordinary strength of the position, they could not have stood a moment. At this critical juncture, Hussein, deceived by a false attack of Czarnicki, hastened with his cavalry to the other side of the camp, and the spahis, conceiving that he was flying, speedily took to flight. " But the Janizzaries were not j^et van- quished. Inured to arms, they rapidly formed their ranks, and falling upon the valets, who had dispersed in search of plunder, easily put them to the sword. Fortunately, Sobieski had had time to employ his foot soldiers in level- ling the ground, and rendering accessible the approaches to the summits of the hills. The Polish cavalry came rushing in with a noise like thunder. The hussars, the cuirassiers, with burning torches afhxed to their lances, scaled precipices which seemed hardly acces- sible to foot soldiers. Inactive till that mo- ment, Paz now roused his giant strength. Ever the rival of Sobieski, he rushed forward with his Lithuanian nobles in the midst of every danger, to endeavour to arrive first in the Ottoman camp. It was too late ; — already the flaming lances of the Grand Hetman gleamed on the summits of the entrenchments, i. ever attentive to the duties ef a com- mander, Sobieski was employed in re-forminf the ranks of the assailants, disordered by the assault and their success, and preparing for a new battle in the midst of that city of tents, which, though surprised, seemed "not subdued. " But the astonishment and confusion of the besieged, the cries of the women, shut up in the Harems, the thundering charges of the heavy squadrons clothed in impenetrable steel, and composed of impel uous young men, gave the Turks no time to recover from their con- sternation. It was no longer a battle, bat a massacre. Demetrius and the Lithuanian met at the same time in the invaded camp. A ciy of horror now rose from the Turkish ranks, and they rushed in crowds to the bridge of boats which crossed the Dniester, and formed the sole communication between Kotzim, and the fortified cityof Kamaniek. In the stnjggle to reach this sole outlet from destruction, mul- titudes killed each other. But Sobieski's fore- sight had deprived the vanquished even of this last resource. His brother-in-law, Radziwil had during the tumult glided unperceived through the bottom of the ravines, and at the critical moment made himself master of the bridge, and the heights which commanded it. The only resource of the fugitives was now to throw themselves into the waves. 20,000 men perished at that fatal point, either on the shores or in the half-congealed stream. Insatiable in carnage, the hussars led by Maziniki pursued them on horseback into the bed of the Dneiper, and sabred thousands when struggling in the stream. 40,000 dead bodies were found in the precincts of the camp. The water of the river for several leagues ran red with blood, and corpses were thrown up with every wave on its deserted shores. "At the news of this extraordinary triumph, the Captain Pacha, who was advancing with a fresh army to invade Poland, set fire to his camp, and hastened across the Danube. The Moldavians and Walachians made their sub- mission to the conqueror, and the Turks, re- cently so arrogant, began to tremble for their capital. Europe, electrified with these sac- cesses, returned thanks for the greatest victory gained for three centuries over the infidels. Christendom quivered with joy, as if it had just escaped from ignominy and bondage." — n. 130—153. " But while Europe was awaiting the intel- ligence of the completion of the overthrow of the Osmanlis, desertion and flight had ruined the Polish army. Whole Palatinates had abandoned their colours. They were desirous to carry off in safety the spoils of the East, and to prepare for that new field of battle which the election of the King of Poland, who di»d at this juncture, presented. Sobieski remained almost alone on the banks of the Dniester. At the moment when Walachia and Moldavia were throwing themselves under the protec- tion of the Polish crown, when the Captain Pacha was flying to the foot of Balkan, and Sobieski was dreaming of changing the face of the world, his army dissolved. The Turks, at this unexpected piece of fortune, recovered from their terror; and the rule of the Mussul ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. ■ ?r. wan peqw-tualcd for two centuries in Eu- rope"— II. IfiS. This victory and the subsequent dissolution of the army, so characteristic both of the glo- ri, lancy of Poland, great as it » y the spU'n(h>urs of tlic dc- li\ I \ K'lma. The account of the pie- tu '.urn of this preat man to the throne of Poland is singularly characteristic of Polish mn liners. -lii- plain of Volo to the west of Warsaw had 1" i-n the theatre, from the earliest times, of the popular elections. Already the impa- tient Pospolite covered that vast extent with ils waves, like an army prepared to commence an assault on a fortified town. The innumera- ble piles of arms ; the immense tables round which faction united their supporters; a thousand jousts with the javelin or tlic lance; a thousand squadrons engaged in mimic war; a thousand parties of palatines, governors of castles, and other dignified authorities who Jravcrspd the ranks distributing exhortations, pa -. and largesses ; a thousand caval- Ci! .;'ntleinen, who rode, according to custom, with their battle-axes by their sides, and discussed at the gallop the dearest in- terests of the republic; innumerable quarrels, ori;jinating in drunkenness, and terminating in blood: Such were the scenes of tumult, amusiment, and war, — a faithful mirror of Poland, — which, as far as the eye could reach, filled the plain. " The arena was closed in by a vast circle of tents, which embraced, as in an immense girdle, the plain of Volo. the shores of the Vis- tula, and the spires of Warsaw. The horizon seemed bounded by a range of snowy moun- tains, of which the summits were portrayed in the hazy distance by their dazzling whiteness. Their camp formed another city, with its markets, its gardens, its hotels, and its monu- ments. There the great displayed their Orien- tal magnificence; the nobles, the palatines, vied with each other in the splendour of their horses and equipage ; and the stranger who beheld for the first time that luxury, worthy of the last and greatest of the Nomade people, Tras never weary of admiring the immense hotels, the porticoes, the colonnades, the gal- leries of painted or gilded stufTs, the castles of cotton and silk, with their draw-bridges, towers, and ditches. Thanks to the recent victory, a great part of these riches had been taken from the Turks. Judging from the mulmudc of stalls, kitchens, baths, audience chambers, the elegance of the Oriental archi- Iccture, the taste of the designs, the profusion of (gilded crosses, domes, and pagodas, you would imau'inc that the seraglio of some Easlf-rn suiian had been transported by en- chanimr'ni to the banks of the Vistula. Vic- tory had accomplished this prodigy ; these m-ere the tmts of Mahomet IV., taken at the bniile of Kotzim, and though Subieski was absent, his triumphant arms surmounted the cr«(rcnt of .Mahomci. "The Lithuanians were encamped on the opp.-Mte shores of the Vistula; and their fJrand llriiii.nn, Michel P.iz. had bron^'hl up his whole force 1-. dictate laws, as it were, to the Polish crown. Sobieski had previouslj occupied thfl bridge over the river by a regiment of hussars, upon M-hich the Lithuanians seized every house in the city which wealth could com- mand. These hostile dispositions were too significant of frightful disorders. War soon ensued in the midst of the rejoicings between Lithuania and Poland. Every time the oppo- site factions met, their strife terminated in bloodshed. The hostilities extended even to the bloody game of the Klopiches, which was played by a confederation of the boys in the city, or of pages and valets, who amused them- selves by forming troops, electing a marshal, choosing a field of battle, and fighting there to the last extremity. On this occasion they were divided into corps of Lithuanians and Poles, who hoisted the colours of their respec- tive slates, got fire-arras to imitate more com- pletely the habits of the equestrian order, and disturbed the plain everywhere by their marches, or terrified it by their assaults. Their shock desolated the plain ; the villages were in llames ; the savage huts of which the suburbs of Warsaw were then composed, were incessantly invaded and sacked in that terri- ble sport, invented apparently to inure the youth to civil war, and extend even to the slaves the enjoyments of anarchy. " On the day of the elections the three orders mounted on horseback. The princes, the palatines, the bishops, the prelates, proceeded towards the plain of Volo, surrounded by eighty thousand mounted citizens, any one of whom might, at the expiry of a few hours, find him- self King of Poland. They all bore in their countenances, even under the livery or ban- ners of a master, the pride arising from that ruinous privilege. The European dress no- where appeared on that solemn occasion. The children of the desert strove to hide the furs and skins in which they were clothed under chains of gold and the glitter of jewels. Their bonnets were composed of panther-skin, plumes of eagles or herons surmounted them: on their front were the most splendid precious stones. Their robes of sable or ermine were bound with velvet or silver: their girdle studded with jewels; over all their furs were suspended chains of diamonds. One hand of each nobleman wa.= without a glove ; on it was the splendid ring on which the arms of his family were engraved ; the mark, as in ancient Rome, of the equestrian order. A new proof of this intimate connection between th& race, the customs, and the traditions of the northern tribes, and the founders of the Eternal Cit3-. " But nothing in this rivalry of magnificence could equal the splendour of their arms. Double poniards, double scymitars, set with brilliants; bucklers of costly wcrkraanship, battle-axes enriched in silver, and glittering with emeralds and sapphires; bows and arrows richly gilt, which were borne at festivals, in remembrance of the ancient customs of the country, were to be seen on every side. The horses shared in this melange of barbarism and refinement; sometimes cased in iron, at others decorated with the richest colours, they bent under the weight of the sabres, the lances, and javelins by which the senatorial order POLAND. 61 marked their rank. The bishops -were distin- guished by their gray or green hats, and yellow or red pantaloons, magnificently embroidered with divers colours. Often they laid aside their pastoral habits, and signalized their ad- dress as young cavaliers, by the bea'at}^ of their arms, and the management of their horses. In that crowd of the equestrian order, there was no gentleman so humble as not to try to rival this magnificence. Many carried, in furs and arms, their whole fortunes on their backs. Numbers had sold their votes to some of the candidates, for the vanity of appearing with some additional ornament before their fellow- citizens. And the people, whose dazzled eyes beheld all this magnificence, were almost with- out clothing; their long beards, naked legs, and filth, indicated, even more strongly than llieir pale visages and dejected air, all the miseries of servitude." — II. 190 — 197. The achievement which has immortalized the name of John Sobieski is the deliverance of Vicnn^ in 1683 — of this glorious achieve- ment M. Salvandy gives the following interest- ing account: — "After a siege of eight months, and open trenches for sixty days, Vienna was reduced to the last extremity. Famine, disease, and the sword, had cut off two-thirds of its garri- son ; and the inhabitants, depressed by inces- sant toil for the last six months, and sickened by long deferred hope, were given up to des- pair. Many breaches were made in the walls ; the massy bastions were crumbling in ruins, and entrenchments thrown up in haste in the streets, formed the last resource of the German capital. Stahremborg, the governor, had an- nounced the necessity of surrendering if not relieved in three days ; and every night signals of distress from the summits of the steeples, announced the extremities to which they were reduced. " One evening, the sentinel who was on the watch at the top of the steeple of St. Stephen's, perceived a blazing flame on the summits of the Calemberg; soon after an army was seen preparing to descend the ridge. Every tele- scope was instantly turned in that direction, and from the brilliancy of their lances, and the splendour of their banners it was easy to see that it was the Hussars of Poland, so redoubt- able to the Osmanlis, who were approaching. The Turks were immediately to be seen divid- ing their vast host into divisions, one destined to oppose this new enemy, and one to continue the assaults on the besieged. At the sight of the terrible conflict which was appi'oaching, the women and children flocked to the churches, while Stahremborg led forth all that remained of the men to the breaches. " The Duke of Lorraine had previously set forth with a few horsemen to join the King of Poland, and learn the art of war, as he ex- pressed it, under so great a master. The two illustrious commanders soon concerted a plan of operations, and Sobieski encamped on the Danube, with all his forces, united to the troops of the empire. It was with tears of joy, that the sovereigns, generals, and the soldiers of the Imperialists received the illustrious chief whom heaven had sent to their relief. Before his arrival discord reigned in their camp, but all now )aelded obedience to the Polish hero. " The Duke of Lorraine had previously con structed at Tulin, six leagues below Vienna a triple bridge, which Kara Mustapha, the Turkish commander, allowed to be formed without opposition. The German Electors nevertheless hesitated to cross the river ; the severity of the weather, long rains, and roads now almost impassable, augmented their alarms. But the King of Poland was a stranger alike to hesitation as fear; the state of Vienna would admit of no delay. The last despatch of Stahremborg was simply in these words: ' There is no time to lose.' — ' There is no re- , verse to fear,' exclaimed Sobieski ; ' the gene ral who at the head of three hundred thousand men could allow that bridge to be constructed in his teeth, cannot fail to be defeated.' "On the following day the liberators of Christendom passed in review before their allies. The Poles marched first; the specta- tors were astonished at the magnificence of their arms, the splendour of the dresses, and the beauty of the horses. The infantry was less brilliant; one regiment in particular, by its battered appearance, hurt the pride of the monarch — ' Look well at those brave men,' said he to the Imperialists ; ' it is an invincible battalion, who have sworn never to renew their clothing, till they are arrayed in the spoils of the Turks.' These Avords were repeated to the regiments; if they did not, says the annal- ist, clothe them, they encircled every man with a cuirass. "The Christian army, when all assembled, amounted to 70,000 men, of whom only 30,000 were infantry. Of these the Poles were 18,000. — The principal disquietude of the king was on account of the absence of the Cossacks, whom Mynzwicki had promised to bring up to his assistance. — He well knew what admirable scouts they formed : the Tartars had always found in them their most formidable enemies. Long experience in the Turkish wars had rendered them exceedingly skilful in thi? species of warfare : no other force was equa. to them in seizing prisoners and gaining in- telligence. They were promised ten crowns for every man they brought in after this man- ner : they led their captives to the tent of their king, where they got -their promised reward^ and went away saying, 'John, I have touchetS mv money, God will repay you.' — Bereaved of these faithful assistants, the king was com- pelled to expose his hussars in exploring the dangerous defiles in which the army was about to engage. The Imperialists, Avho could not comprehend his attachment to that undisci- plined militia, were astonished to hear him incessantly exclaiming, ' Oh ! Mynzwicki, Oh » Mynzwicki.' " 'A rocky chain, full of narrow and precipitous ravines, of woods and rocks, called the Calem- berg in modern times, the Mons JEthis of the Romans, separated the two armies : the cause of Christendom from that of Mahomet. It was necessary to scale that formidable barrier; for the mountains advanced with a rocky front into the middle of the Danube. Fortunately, ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. iho ii*»r'''^nrc nf ih* Turks had omitted to { • . where a few battalions 17 , : -.1 the Polish army. \ (lid equ.il the confidence of the 'J" in<" disquietude of the Imperialists. ^ ih«« terror impressed by the vast I 1, that at the first cry of A IS took to llifrht. Many .ints were incessantly cnjjagcd It) :• . !■• roads over the mountains, or cuttir. h the forest The foot soldiers d ih their arms, and were C' 1 llio heavier pieces. Chiefs and soldiers carried each his own pro- visions: the leaves of the oak formed the sole f uhsistcnce of the horses. Some scouts reach- c! '■ iinmit of the ridfre lon^ before the r "f the army, and from thence be- h iless myriads of the Turkish t< ■ .:: to the walls of Vienna. Ter- rified at the sisht, they returned in dismay, and a contagious panic bc2;an to spread through the army. The king had need, to re- a-^ troops, of all the security of his C' f. the gaietv of his discourse, and Ihe remembrance of the multitudes of the infidels whom he had dispersed in his life. The Janiz/arics of his guard, who surrounded him on the march, were so many living monu- mT?* "f his victories, and every one was e ' that he ventured to attack the Mus- 511 iih such an escort. He offered to send them to the rear, or even to giA^e them a «afe conduct to the Turkish camp, but they all answered with tears in their eyes, that they «■ and die with him. His heroism S'i . i alike Infidels and Christians, chiefs and soldiers. ".\t length, on Saturday, September 11th, the army encamped, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, on the sterile and inhospitable sum- m't of the Calemberg, and occupied the con- vent of Camalddli and the old castle of Leo- poldsburg. Far beneath extended the vast and uneven plain of Austria: its smoking capital, thf - ' ' ! tents, and countless host of the *>• while at the foot of the ridge, where ''' 'i sunk into the plain, the forests *' ' •^ were occupied by the advanced puardr the darkness and blood of the revolution. CI ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. MADAME I)E STAEL.' Amidst ihc deluge of new and ephemeral pulilicalions under which the press l)oth in France and England is groaning, and the wofui depravity of public taste, in all branches of literature, which in the former country has followed the Revolution of the Three Glorious Days, it is not the least important part of the duty of all those who have any share, however inconsiderable, in the direction of the objects to which public thought is to be applied, to recur from time to time to the great and standard works of a former age ; and from ajnid.st the dazzling light of passing meteors in the lower regions of the atmosphere, to endeavour to direct the public gaze to those fixed luminaries whose radiance in the higher heavenf shines, and ever will shine, in im- perishable lustre.(' From our sense of the im- portance and utility of this attempt, we arc not to be deterfed by the common remark, that these authors are in everybody's hands ; ihal their works are read at school, and their names become as household sounds. We know that many things are read at school winch arc forgotten at college; and many things learned at college which are unhappily and permanently discarded in later years; and that there are many authors whose names are as household sounds, whose works for thai very reason are as a strange and unknown tongue. Every one has heard of Kacine and Molit'-re, of Bossuet and Fenelon, of Voltaire and ltt)usseau, of Chateatibriand and Madame de Stael, of Pascal and Rabelais. We would beg to ask even our best informed and most learned readers, with how'many of their works they are really familiar ; how many of their felicitous expressions have sunk into their recollections; how many of their ideas are engraven on their memory? Others may possess more retentive memories, or more ex- t'Misive reading than we do; but we confess, wli(-n we apply such a question, even to the consianl study of thirty years, we feel not a liiUe mortified at the time which has been misapplied, and the brilliant ideas once ob- laihcd from others which have now faded from till- rjects on which she has touched nil the most profound emotions which they could awaken; and if the first leaves a (jorpeous scene painted on the mind, the latter has engraved a durable impression on tiie heart. CuRiNXE is not to be regarded as a novel. Boarding-school girls, and youths just fledged from college, may admire it as such, and dwell with admiration on the sorrows of the heroine and the faithlessness of Lord Nevil; but con- sidered in that view it has glaring faults, both in respect of fancy, probability, and story, and will bear no comparison either ^rith the great novels of Sir Waller Scott, or the secondary productions of his numerous imitators. The real view in which to regard it is as a picuire of Italy; its inhabitants, feelings, and recollec- lions; its cloudless skies and glassy seas; its forest-clad hills and sunny vales ; its umbra- geous groves and mouldering forms; its heart- inspiring ruins and deathless scenes. As such it is superior to any work on that subject which has appeared in any European language. No- where else shall we find so rich and glowing an intermixture of sentiment with description ; of deep feeling for the beauty of art, with a correct perception of its leading principles ; of historical lore with poetical fancy; of ar- dour in the cause of social amelioration, Mith charity to the individuals who, under unfortu- nate institutions, are chained to a life of indo- lence and pleasure. Beneath the glowing sun and azure skies of Italy she has imbibed the real modern Italian spirit: she exhibits in the mouth of her heroine all that devotion to art, that rapturous regard to antiquit}', that insou- cianrt in ordinary life, and constant bcsoin of fresh excitement by which that remarkable people are distinguished from any other at present in Europe. She paints them as they really are ; living on the recollection of the past, feeding on the glories of their double set of illustrious ancestors; at times exulting in the recollection of the legions which subdued the world, a*, others recurring with pride to the glorious though brief days of modern art; mingling the names of Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, and Viriril with those of Michael Angelo, Ra- phael, Buonarotti, and Corieggio; repeating with admiration the stanzas of Tasso as they glide through the deserted palaces of Venice, and storing ihcir mind.> with the rich creations of Ariosi.i's fancy as they gaze on the stately monuments of Rome. Not less vividly has she portrayed, in the language, feelings, and character of her he- roine, the smgular intermixture with these animating recthe prow of the vessel, which looked to the west. "The globe of the sun, ready to plunge into the waves, appeared between the ropes of the vessel in the midst of boundless space. You would have imagined, from the balancing of the poop, that the glorious luminary changed at every instant its horizon. A few light clouds were scattered without order in the east, where the moon was slowly ascending; all the rest of the sky was unclouded. Towards the north, forming a glorious triangle with the star of day and that of night, a glittering cloud arose from the sea, resplendent with the colours of the prism, like a crystal pile supporting the vault of heaven. " He is much to be pitied who could have witnessed this scene, without feeling the beau- ty of God. Tears involuntarily flowed from my e3'es, when my companions, taking oft" their hats, began to sing, in their hoarse strains, the simple hymn of Our Lady of Succour. How touching was that prayer of men, who, on a fragile plank, in the midst of the ocean, contemplated the sun setting in the midst of the waves! How that simple invocation of the mariners to the mother of woes, went to the heart ! The consciousness of our littleness in the sight of Infinity — our chants prolonged afar over the waves — night approaching with its sable wings — a whole crew of a vessel filled with admiration and a holy fear — God bending over the ab3'ss, M'ith one hand iclain- ing the sun at the gates of the west, with the other raising the moon in the east, and yet lending an attentive ear to the voice of prayer ascending from a speck in the immensity — all combined to form an assemblage which can not be described, and of which the human heart could hardly bear the weight. "The scene at land was not less ravishing One evening I had lost my way in a forest, at a short distance from the Falls of Niagara ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAVS. 800D the day f xpircti around me, and I tasted, in all its solitude, the lovely spectacle of a nipht in the deserts of the New World. " An hour after sunset the moon showed it- »flf above the branches, on the opposite side of the horizon. An embalmed breeze, Mhich the Queen of Night seemed to bring with her from the East, preceded her with its frcshen- injr calcs. The solitary star ascended by de- 1 the heavens; sometimes she followed ]y her azure course, sometimes she rcpi'sfii on the groups of clouds, which re- sembled the summits of lofty mountains covered with snow. These clouds, opening and clos- ing their sails, now spread themselves out in transparent zones of white satin, now dis- persed into light bubl>lcs of foam, or formed in the heavens bars of while so dazzling and sweet, that you could almost believe you felt their snowy surface. " The scene on the earth was of equal beau- ty ; the declining day, and the light of the moon, descended into the intervals of the trees, and spread a faint gleam even in the profonndest part of the darkness. The river which flowed at my feet, alternately lost itself in the woods, and reappeared brilliant with the constella- tions of night which reposed on its bosom. In a savanna on the other side of the river, the moonbeams slept without movement on the verdant turf. A few birches, agitated by the breeze, and dispersed here and there, formed isles of floating shadow on that motionless sea of light. All would have been in profound repose, but for the fall of a few leaves, the breath of a transient breeze, and the moaning of the owl ; while, in the distance, at intervals the deep roar of Niagara was heard, whichj prolonged from desert to desert in the calm of the night, expired at length in the endless solitude of the forest. "The grandeur, the surpassing melancholy of that scene, can be expressed by no human tongue — the finest nights of Europe can give no conception of it. In vain, amidst our cul- tivated fields, does the imagination seek to ex- pand—it meets on all sides the habitations of men ; but in those savage regions the soul loves to shroud itself in the ocean of forests, to hang over the gulf of cataracts, to meditate on the shores of lakes and rivers, and feel itself alone as it were with God. 'Prir«pnIiorcni rnnf Dpiini, li-rn |H-r jiien, rlivoKqiiL- priiTiiptoB, Hiiiinritfi inicr aquas ticmoruiiuiue noctem.' " We doubt if any passages ever were written of more thrilling descriptive eloquence than these; hereafter wc shall contrast them with some (if the finest of Lamarlinc, which have equalled but not exceeded them. But now mark the difltrent style with which Madame de SiafI ireaU the heart-stirring monuments of Roman greatness. "At this moment 8t. Peter arose to their Tirw ; the greatest edifice which man has ever raised, for the Pyramids themselves arc of less eonsiderable elevation. I would perhaps have done better, said Corinne, to have taken yoii In the most beautiful of our edifices last; luit thai i.s n>. my system. lam convinced that, to render one ahve to Ow charm of the fine arts, we should commence with those ohjecta which awaken a lively and profound adinira* tion. When once that sentiment has oeen experienced, a new sphere of ideas is awaken- ed, which renders us susceptible of the im- pression produced by beauties of an inferior order; they reviv'e, though in a lesser degree, the first impression which has been received. All these gradations in producing emotion are contrary to my opinion ; you do not arrive at the sublime by successive steps; infinite de- grees separate it from the beautiful. " Oswald experienced an extraordinary emo- tion on arriving in front of the facade of St. Peter's. It was the iirst occasion on which a work of human hands produced on him the ejects of one of the marvels of nature. It is the only effort of human industiy which has the grandeur which characterizes the imme- diate works of the Creator. Corinne rejoiced in the astonishment of Oswald. 'I have chosen,' said she, ' a day when the sun was shining in all its eclat to show you this monu- ment for the first time. I reserve for 3'oti a more sacred religious enjoyment, to contem- plate it by the light of the moon ; but at this moment it was necessary to obtain your pre- sence at the most brilliant of our fetes, the genius of man decorated by the magnificence of nature.' "The Place of St. Peter is surrounded by columns, which appear light at a distance, hut massy when seen near. The earth, Avhich rises gently to the gate of the church, adds to the effect it produces. An obelisk of eighty feet in height, which appears as nothing in presence of the ctipola of St. Peter's, is in the middle of the place. The form of obelisks has something in it which is singularly pleas- ing to the imagination; their summit loses itself in the clouds, and seems even to elevate to the Heavens a great thought of man. That monument, -which was brought from Egypt to adorn the baths of Caracalla, and Avhich Sex- tus V. subsequently transported to the foot of the Temple of St. Peter ; that contemporary of so many ages which have sought in vain to decay its solid frame, inspires respect ; man feels himself so fleeting, that he always expe- riences emotion in presence of that which has passed imchanged through many ages- At a little distance, on each side of the obelisk, are two fountains, the waters of which perpetually are projected up and fall doM-n in cascades through the air. That murmur of waters, which is usually heard only in the field, pro- duces in such a situation a new sensation; but one in harmony with that which arises from the aspect of so majestic a temple. " Painting or sculpture, imitating in general the human figure, or some object in external nature, awaken in our minds distinct and posi- tive ideas ; but a beautiful monument of archi- tecture has not any determinate expression, and the spectator is seized, on contemplating it, with that reverie, without anv definite ob- ject, which leads the thoughts so "far off. The sound of the waters adds to these vague and profound impressions; it is uniform, as the edifice is regular. ' Eternal movement and eternal repose* MADAME DE STAEL. 69 are thus brought to combine -with each other. It is here, in an especial mannei', that Time is without power; it never dries up those spark- ling streams ; it never shakes those immovable pillars. The waters, which spring up in fan- like luxuriance from these fountains, are so light and vapour}^ that, in a fine day, the ra3^s of the sun produce little rainbows of the most beautiful colour. " Stop a moment here, said Corinne to Lord Nelvil, as he stood under the portico of the church ; pause before drawing aside the cur- tain which covers the entrance of the Temple. Does not your heart beat at the threshold of that sanctuary] Do you not feel, on entering it, the emotion consequent on a solemn event 1 At these words Corinne herself drew aside the curtain, and held it so as to let Lord Nelvil enter. Her attitude was so beautiful in doing so, that for a moment it icithdrcw the eyes of her lover even from the majestic interior of the Temple, But as he advanced, its greatness bui-st upon his mind, and the impression which he received under its lofty arches was so profound, that the sentiment of love was for a time eifaced. He walked slowly beside Corinne ; both were silent. Everything enjoined contemplation; the slightest sound resounded so far, that no word appeared worthy of being repeated in those eternal mansions. Prayer alone, the voice of misfortune was heard at intervals in their vast vaults. And, when under those stupendous domes, you hear from afar the voice of an old man, whose trembling steps totter along those beautiful marbles, watered with so many tears, you feel that man is ren- dered more dignified by that very infirmity of his nature which exposes his divine spirit to so many kinds of suifering, and that Chris- tianity, the worship of grief, contains the true secret of man's sojourn upon earth. " Corinne interrupted the reverie of Oswald, and said to him, 'You have seen the Gothic churches of England and Germany, and must have observed that they are distinguished by a much more sombre character than this cathe- di'al. There is something mystical in the Ca- tholicism of these Northern people ; ours speaks to the imagination by exterior objects. Michael Angelo said, on beholding the cupola of the Pantheon, 'I AviJl place it in the air;' and, in truth, St. Peter's is a temple raised on the basement of a church. There is a certain alliance of the ancient worship with Christi- anity in the efl^ect which the interior of that church produces: I often go to walk here alone, in order to restore to my mind the tran- quillity it may have lost. The sight of such a monument is like a continual and fixed music, awaiting you to pour its balm into your mind, whenever you approach it ; and certainly, among the manj- titles of this nation to glory, we must number the patience, courage, and disinterestedness of the chiefs of the church, who consecrated, during a hundred and fifty years, such vast treasures and boundless labour to the prosecution of a work, of which none of them could hope to enjoy the fruits.'" — Corinne, vol. i. c. 3. In this magnificent passage, the words un- derlined are an obvious blemish. The idea of Oswald turning aside at the entrance of St. Peter's from the gaze of the matchless interior of the temple, a spectacle unique in the world, to feast his eye by admiration of his inamorata is more than we, in the frigid latitudes of the north, can altogether understand. But Ma- dame de Staiil was a woman, and a French- Avoman ; and apparently she could not resist the opportunity of signalizing the triumph of her sex, by portraying the superiority of female beauty to the grandest and most imposing ob- ject that the hands of man have ever reared. Abstracting from this feminine weakness, the passage is one of almost uniform beauty, and well illustrates the peculiar descriptive style of the author; not painting objects, but touch- ing the cords which cause emotions to vibrate. She has unconsciously characterized her own style, as compared with that of Chateaiibriand, in describing the different characters of the cathedrals of the North and South. — " There is something mystical in the Catholicism of the Northern people ; ours speaks to the imagina- tion by exterior objects." As another specimen of Madame de Stael's descriptive powers, take her picture of the Appian Way, with, its long lines of tombs on either side, on the southern quarter of Rome. " She conducted Lord Nelvil beyond the gates of the city, on the ancient traces of the Appian Way. These traces are marked in the middle of the Campagna of Rome by tombs, on the right and left of which the ruins extend as far as the eye can reach for several miles beyond the walls. Cicero says that, on leaving the gate, the first tombs you meet are those of Metellus, the Scipios, and Servillius. The tomb of the Scipios has been discovered in the very place which he describes, and transported to the Vatican. Yet it was, in some sort, a sacrilege to displace these illus- trious ashes ; imagination is more nearly allied than Is generally imagined to morality; we must beware of shocking it. Some of these tombs are so large, that the houses of peasants have been worked out in them, for the Romans consecrated a large space to the last remains of their friends and their relatives. They were strangers to that arid principle of utility which fertilizes a few corners of earth, the more by devastating the vast domain of senti- ment and thought. " You see at a little distance from the Ap- pian Way a temple raised by the Republic to Honour and Virtue ; another to the God which compelled Hannibal to remeasure his steps • the Temple of Egeria, Avhere Numa went to consult his tutelar deity, is at a little distance on the left hand. Around these tombs the traces of virtue alone are to be found. No monument of the long ages of crime which disgraced the empire are to be met with be- side the places where these illustrious dead repose ; they rest amongst the relics of the republic. "The aspect of the Campagna around Home has something in it singularly remarkable. Doubtless it is a desert; there are neither trees nor habitations; but-the earth is covered with a profusion of natural flowers, which the energy of vegetation lenews incessantly ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Tho\r crrcpinp plants insinuate themselves n ! .'nu th«* loinbs, decorate the ruins, and . .. ... . i.-iy lo do iKmour to the dead. \ ^c thai nature was too proud I ' ' ! - of man, since Cin- . I, tlie jilini-^h which Iiii! 'ws I1.S bo^<^ln ; il produces llowcrs in w iM profu.Hion, which arc of no sort of use to the oxistinR generation. These vast unculti- vaicd planes will doubtless have few altrac- ii.,ii< f..r (he ntrriculiurist, administrators, and n lie on the earth, wiih a \ ii ihc riches it is capable of allordmR; but the ihoni,'hlful minds, whom 'Jeath occupies as much as life, arc sincrulariy Attracted by the aspect of that Campagna, V it times have left no trace; ! ( heri>hes only tlie dead, and covers tliem m its love with useless flowers — plants which creep alons; the surface, and never acquire suflicient strength to separate V ' . . s from the ashes, which they have the ■e of caressing." — Corinne, 1. v. c. 1. Iluw m.iny travellers have traversed the Appian Way, but how lew have felt the deep impressions which these words are fitted to prtKluce ! " The churches of modem Rome," continues the same author, " are decorated with the mag- nillfcnce of antiquity, but there is something re and striking in the intermingling of .:.: -:■ beautiful marbles with the ornaments stripped from the Pagan temples. The columns of porphyry and granite were so numerous at Rome that they ceased to have any value. At 8l. John Lateran, that church, so famous from the councils of which it was the theatre, there were such a quantity of marble columns that r.any of them were covered with plaster to be converted into pilasters — so completely had the multitude of riches rendered men indifl'er- ent to them. Some of these columns came from the tomb of Adrian, and bear yet upon their capitals the mark of the geese which saved the Itoman people. These columns support the ornaments of Gothic churches, and some rich sculptures in the arabesque order. The urn of .Agrippa has received the ashes of a ptpc, for the dead themselves have yielded their place to other dead, and the tombs nave chansred tenants nearly as often as the ni.iriMons of the living. ".Near to St. John Lateran is the holy stair, Iran'.portJ'd from Jerusalem. No one is per- rn.ii.-,! to go up it but on his knees. In like rn.ijinrr Cirsar and Claudius ascended on their kn.rs the Mair which led to the temple of Ju- piter «" • ' iHis. Ueside St. John Lateran is •he H ,-. where Constaiitine was bap- li/.-,l — III the middle of tiie place before the church ii an o»'eli>k, perhaps the most ancient monument which exists in the world— an obe- lisk contempbeli>k which the barbarian Cambyses re- ' ' ' ' ■ slop for its beauty the ' , — an obelisk for which ft kiiii: put in piedtfe the life of his only son. The Homans in a surprising manner got it conveyed from the extremity of Kirypt to Italy th«»v tnriHvl aside th*- mnrsf of the Nile to bring Its waters so as to convey it to the sea. Even then that obelisk was covered with hieroglyphics whose secrets have been kept for so many ages, and which still withstand the researches of our most learned scholars- Possibly the Indians, the Egyptians, the finti- quity of antiquity, might be revealed to us in these mysterious signs. The wonderful charm of Rome consists, not merely in the beauty of its monuments, but in the interest which they all awaken, and that species of charm increases daily with every fresh study." — Ibid. c. 3. We add only a feeble prosaic translation o' the splendid improvisalorc ellusion of Corinnt on the Cape of Mcsinum, surrounded by the marvels of the shore of Baite and the Phieg- rian fields. "Poetry, nature*, history, here rival each other in grandeur — here you can embrace in a single glance all the revolutions cf time and all its prodigies. "I see the Lake of Avernus, the extin- guished crater of a volcano, whose Avaters formerly inspired so much terror — Acheron, Phlegeton, which a subterraneous flame caused to boil, are the rivers of the infernals visited by JEneas. " Fire, that devouring element Avhich created the world, and is destined to consume it, was formerly an object of the greater terror that its laws were unknown. Nature, in the olden times, revealed its secrets to poetr)' alone. " The city of Cumas, the Cave of the Sibylle, the Temple of Apollo, were placed on that height. There grew the wood whence was gathered the golden branch. The countr)' of ^■Eneas is around you, and the fictions conse- crated by genius have become recollections of which we still seek the traces. "A Triton plunged into these wa\'es the presumptive Trojan Avho dared to defy the di- vinities of the deep by his songs — these water- worn and sonorous rocks have still the cha- racter which Virgil gave them. Imagination was faithful even in the midst of its omnipo- tence. The genius of man is creative when he feels Nature — imitative when he fancies he is creating. "In the midst of these terrible masses, gray witnesses of the creation, we see a new moun- tain which the volcano has produced. Here the earth is stormy as the ocean, and does not, like it, re-enter peaceably into its limits. The heavy element, elevated by subterraneous fire, fills up valleys, ' rains mountains,' and its petrified waves attest the tempests which once tore its entrails. "If you strike on this hill the subterraneous vault resounds — you would say that the in- habited earth is nothing but a "crust ready to open and swallow us up. The Campagna of Naples is the image of human passion — sul- phurous, but fruitful, its dangers and its plea- sures appear to grow out of those glowing . volcanoes which give to the air so many charms, and cause the thunder to roll beneath our feet. "Pliny boasted that his country was the most beautiful in existence — he studied nature to be able to appreciate its charms. Seeking the inspiration of science as a warrior does conquest, he set forth from this promontory to MADAME DE STAEL, observe Vesuvius athwart the flames, and those flames consumed him. "Cicero lost his life near the promontory of Gaeta, which is seen in the distance. The Triumvirs, regardless of posterity, bereaved it of the thoughts which that great man had conceived — it was on us that his murder was committed. "Cicero sunk beneath the poniards of ty- rants — Scipio, more unfortunate, was banished by his ffl.ow-citizens while still in the enjo}'- ment of freedom. He terminated his days near that shore, and the ruins of his tomb are still called the 'Tower of our Country.' What a touching allusion to the last thought of that great spirit I " Marius fled into those marshes not far from the last home of Scipio. Thus in all ages the people have persecuted the really great; but they are avenged by their apotheosis, and the Roman who conceived their power extended even unto Hea,ven, placed Romulus, Numa, and Ccesar in the firmament — new stars which confound in our eyes the rays of glory and the celestial radiance. "Oh, memory! noble power! thy empire is in these scenes ! From age to age, strange destiny ! man is incessantly bewailing what he has lost! These remote ages are the de- positaries in their turn of a greatness which is DO more, and while the pride of thought, glory- ing in its progress, darts into futurity, our soul seems still to regret an ancient country to which, the past in some degree brings it back." — Lib. xii. c. 4. Enough has now been given to give the un- lettered reader a conception of the descriptive character of these two great continental writers — to recall to the learned one some of the most delightful moments of his life. To complete the parallel, we shall now present three of the finest passages of a similar cha- racter from Sir Walter Scott, that our readers may be able to appreciate at a single sitting the varied excellences of the greatest masters of poetic prose who have appeared in modern times. The first is the well-known opening scene of Ivanhoe. "The sun was setting upon one of the rich grassy glades of that forest, which we have mentioned in the beginning of the chapter. Hundreds of broad-headed, short-stemmed, wide-branched oaks, which had witnessed per- haps the stately march of the Roman soldiery, flung their gnarled arms over a thick carpet of the most delicious green sward; in some places they were intermingled with beeches, hollies, and copsewood of various descrip- tions, so closely as totally to intercept the level beams of the sinking sun ; in others they re- ceded from each other, forming those long sweeping vistas, in the intricacy of which the eye delights to lose itself, while imagination considers them as the paths to yet wilder scenes' of silvan solitude. Here the red rays of the sun shot a broken and discoloured light, that partially hung upon the shattered boughs and mossy trunks of the trees, and there they illuminated in brilliant patches the portions cf turf to which they made their way. A con- 71 siderable open space, in the midst of this glade seemed formerly to have been dedicated to thr rites of Druulical superstition ; for, on the »im mit of a hillock, so regular as to seem artificial, there still remained part of a circle of rough unhewn stones, of large dimensions. Seven stood upright; the rest had been di-slodged from their places, probably by the zeal°oI some convert to Christianity, and lay, some prostrate near their Ibrmer site, and others on the side of the hill. One large stone only had found its way to the bottom, and in stopping the course of a small brook, which "-lider smoothly round the footof theemincnce,°"-ave, by its opposition, 'a feeble voice of murmur to the placid and elsewhere silent streamlet." The next is the equally celebrated descrip- tion of the churchyard in the introductory chapter of Old Mortality. " Farther up the narrow valley, and in a re- cess which seems scooped out of the side of the steep heathy bank, there is a deserted burial-ground which the little cowards are fearful of approaching in the twilight. To me, however, the place has an inexpressible charm. It has been long the favourite termi- nation of my walks, and, if my kind patron forgets not his promise, will (and probably at no very distant day) be my final resting-place after my mortal pilgrimage. "It is a spot which possesses all the solera nity of feeling attached to a burial-ground, without exciting those of a more unpleasing description. Having been very little used for many years, the few hillocks which rise above the level plain are covered with the same short velvet turf. The monuments, of which there are not above seven or eight, are half sunk in the ground and overgrown with moss. No newly-erected tomb disturbs the sober se- renity of our reflections, by reminding us of recent calamity, and no rank springing grass forces upon our imagination the recollection, that it owes its dark luxuriance to the foul and festering remnants of mortality which ferment beneath. The daisy which sprinkles the sod, and the hair-bell v.-hich hangs over it, derive their pure nourishmentfrom the dewof Heaven, and their growth impresses us with no degrad- ing or disgusting recollections. Death lias in- deed been here, and its traces are before us ; but they are softened and deprived of their horror by our distance from the period whei. they have been first impressed. Those who sleep beneath are only connected with us by the reflection, that they have once been what we now are, and that, as their relics are now identified with their mother earth, ours shall, at some future period, undergo the same trans- formation." The third is a passage equally well known, but hardly less beautiful, from the Anliqiiary. "The sun was now resting his luii,'c di^k upon the edge of the level ocean, and gilded the accumulation of towering clouds iluongh which he had travelled the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, IiKc mis- fortunes and disasters around a sinking em- pire, and falling monarch. Siill, how.-vcr, his dying splendour gave a sombre magniliccnca to th«» massive congregation of vapours, fonn ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. ing out of their unsubstantial gloom, the show of jiyraniiiis and towers, some touched willi gold, some with purple, some with a hue of deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched beneath this varied and gorgeous canopy, lay almost portentously still, rellecting back the dazzliii-T and level beams of the descending luminary, and the splendid colouring of the clouds amidst which he was silling. Nearer to the beach, the tide rippled onward in waves of sparkling silver, that imperceptibly, yet ra- pidly, trained upon the sand. "Wiih a mind employed in admiration of the romantic scene, or perhaps on some more agitating topic. Miss Wardour advanced in bilencc by her father's side, whose recently otlended dignity did not stoop to open any conversation. Following the windings of the beach, they passed one projecting point or headland of rock after another, and now found themselves under a huge and continued extent of the precipices by which that iron-bound coast is in most places defended. Long pro- jecting reefs of rock, extending under water, and onlj'' evincing their existence by here and there a peak entirely bare, or by the breakers which foamed over those that were partially covered, rendered Knockwinrlock bay dreaded by pilots and ship-masters. The crags which rose between the beach and the mainland, to the height of two or three hundred feet, af- forded in their crevices shelter for unnum- bered sea-fowl, in situations seemingly secured by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these wild tribes, with the instinct which sends them to seek the land before a storm arises, were now winging towards their nests with the shrill and dissonant clang which announces disquietude and fear. The disk of the sun became almost totally obscured ere he had altogether sunk below the horizon, and an early ai^d lurid shade of darkness blotted the serene twilight of a summer evening. The wind began next to arise; but its wild and moaning sound was heard for some time, and its efiects became visible on the bosom of the sea, before the gale was felt on shore. The mass of waters, now dark and threatening, began to lift itself in larger ridges, and sink in deeper furrows, forming waves that rose high in foam upon the breakers, or bursting upon the beach with a sound resembling distant thunder." Few objects are less beautiful than a bare sheet of water in heathy hills, but see what it becomes under the inspiration of genius. "It was a mild summer day; the beams of the sun, as is not uncommon in Zetland, were moderated and shaded by a silvery haze, which filled the atmosphere, and, destroying the strong contrast of light and shade, gave even to noon tlie sober li'ery of the evening twilight. The little lake, not three-quarters of a mile in cir- cuit, lay in profound quiet; its surface un dimpled, save when one of the numerous water-fowl, which glided on its surface, diveu for an instant under it. The depth of the water gave the whole that cerulean tint of bluish green, which occasioned its being called the Green Loch; and at present, it formed so per feet a mirror to the bleak hills by which it was surrounded, and which lay rellected on its bosom, that it was difficult to distinguish the water from the land ; nay, in the shadowy uncertainty occasioned by the thin haze, a stranger could scarce have been sensible that a sheet of water lay before him. A scene of more complete solitude, having all its pecu- liarities heightened by the extreme serenity of the weather, the quiet gray comi^osed tone of the atmosphere, and the perfect silence of the elements, could hardly be imagined. The very aquatic birds, who frequented the spot in great numbers, forbore their usual flight and screams, and floated in profound tranquillity upon the silent -water." It is hard to say to which of these mighty masters of description the palm should be awarded. Scott is more simple in his lan- guage, more graphic in his details, more thoroughly imbued with the character of the place he is desirous of portraying: Chateau- briand is more resplendent in the images which he selects, more fastidious in the fea- tures he draws, more gorgeous from the mag- nificence with which he is surrounded : Ma- dame de Stael, inferior to both in the power of delineating nature, is superior to either in rousing the varied emotions dependent on his- torical recollections or melancholy impres- sions. It is remarkable that, though she is a southern writer, and has thrown into Corinne all her own rapture at the sun and the recol- lections of Italy, yet it is with a northern eye that she views the scenes it presents — it is not with the living, but the mighty dead, that she holds communio2i — the chords she loves to strike are those melancholy ones which vi- brate more strongly in a northern than a southern heart. Chateaubriand is imbued more largely with the genuine spirit of the south: albeit a Frank by origin, he is filled with the spirit of Oriental poetr)% His soul is steeped in the cloudless skies, and desultory life, and boundless recollections of the East. Scott has no decided locality. He has struck his roots into the human heart — he has de- scribed Nature with a master's hand, under whatever aspects she is to be Seen ; but his associations are of Gothic origin ; his spirit is of chivalrous descent; the nature which he has in general drawn is the sweet gleam of sunshine in a northern climate. NATIONAL MONUMENTS 73 NATIONAL MONUMENTS/ Thb history of mankind, from its earliest period to the present moment, is fraught with proofs of one general truth, that it is in simill etatcs, and in consequence of the emulation and ardent spirit which they develop, that the human mind arrives at its greatest perfection, and that the freest scope is afforded both to the grandeur of moral, and the brilliancy of intel- lectual character. It is to the citizens of small republics that we are indebted both for the greatest discoveries which have improved the condition or elevated the character of man- kind, and for the noblest examples of private and public virtue with which the page of his- tory IS adorned. It was in the republics of ancient Greece, and in consequence of the emulation which was excited among her rival cities, that the beautiful arts of poetry, sculjiture, and architecture Avere first brought to perfection; and while the genius of the hu- man race Avas slumbering among the innume- rable multitudes of the Persian and Indian monarchies, the single city of Athens produced a succession of great men, whose works have improved and delighted the Avorld in every succeeding age. While the vast feudal mo- narchies of Europe Avere buried in ignorance and barbarism, the little states of Florence, Bologna, Rome, and Venice Avere far advanced in the career of arts and in the acquisition of knoAvledge; and at this moment, the traA'eller neglects the boundless but unknoAvn tracts of Germany and France, to Adsit the tombs of Raphael, and Michael Angelo, and Tasso, to dAvell in a country Avdiere every city and every landscape reminds him of the greatness of human genius, or the perfection of human taste. It is from the same cause that the earlier history of the Swiss confederacy exhi- bits a firmness and grandeur of political cha- racter Avhich Ave search for in vain in the annals of the great monarchies by Avhich they are surrounded, that the classical pilgrim pauses awhile in his journey to the Eternal City to do homage to the spirit of its early re- publics, and sees not in the ruins which, at the termination of his pilgrimage, surround him, the remains of imperial Rome, the mistress and the capital of the Avorld ; but of Rome, when struggling with Corioli and Veil ; of Rome, AA'hen governed by Regulus and Cincin- natus — and traces the scene of her infant Avars with the Latian tribes, Avith a pious interest, which all the pomp and magnificence of her subsequent history has not been able to excite. Examples of this kind have often led histo- rians to consider the situation of small re- publics as that of all others most adapted to the exaltation and improvement of mankind. * Blackwood's Magazino, .luly 1S19, and Edinhiirch Review, August 1S23. — Written when the National Mo- numents in London and Edinlmrsh to llie late war were in contemplation, and in review of tl e Earl of Aber leen'f Eagay on Grecian arcliitecture. To minds of an ardent and enthusiaslic cast, AAdio delight in the contemplation of humac genius, or in the progress of public improve- ment, the brilliancy and splendour of such little states form the most delightful of all ob- jects; and accordingly, the greatest of living historians,in his history of theltalian republics, has expressed a decided opinion that in no other situation is such scope afforded to the expansion of the human mind, or such facility afibrded to the 2)rogressive improvemeul of our species. On the other hand, it is not to be concealed, that such little dynasties are accompanied by many circumstances of continued and aggra- vated distress. Their small dimensions, and the jealousies A\diich subsist betAA'ixt them, not only furnish the subject of continual disputes, but aggravate to an incredible degree the miseries and devastations of Avar. Between such states, it is not conducted Avith the dig- nity and in the spirit Avhich characterizes the efforts of great monarchies, but rather Avith the asperity and rancour Avhich belong to a civil contest. While the frontiers only of a great monarchy suffer from the ca/amities of Avar, its devastations extend to the very heart of smaller states. Insecurity and instability fre- quently mark the internal condition of these republics; and the activity A\-hicU the histo- rian admires in their citizens, is too often em- ployed in mutually destroying and pillaging each other, or in disturbing the tranquillity of the state. It is hence that the sunny slopes of the Apennines are everywhere croAvned by castellated A-illages, indicating the universality of the ravages of Avar among the Italian States in former times ; and that the architecture of Florence and Genoa still bears the character of that massy strength Avhich befitted the period Avhen every noble palace was an independent fortress, and Avhen Avar, tumult, and violence, reigned for centuries Avithin their walls ; AAdrile the open villages and straggUng collages of England bespeak the security Avilh Avhich her peasants have reposed under the shadoAV of her redoubted poAver. The universality of this fact has led many wise and good men to regard small states as the prolific source of htunan suficring; aiul to conclude that all the splendour, whether in arts or in science, Avith Avhich they are surrounded, is dearly bought at the expense of the peace and tranquillity of the great body of the peo- ple. To such men it appears, tliat the pcnola of history on Avhich the historian du-olls, or Avhich have been marked by cxlniordmary genius, are not those in Avhich the greatest pul)lic happiness has been enjoyed; but that it is to be found rather imder the qmct and inglorious government of a groat and pacilic empire. . . l- u -r Without pretending to determine which of these opinions is the best founded, it is more 74 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. important for our present purpose to observe, ihat the union of the three kingdoms in ilie Briti.'-h Empire, promises to combine for this cotiiitrv ihe mlvnnt.ifrcs of both these forms of p, t witlinut tlic evils to which either iv . I. While her inJiular situation, and rtie union and enerjry of her people, secure for Great Britain peace and tranquillity within her own bounds, the rivalry of the diflcrcnt nations of whom the empire is composed, pro- mises, if properly directed, to animate her people with the ardour and enterprise which have hitherto been supposed to spring only from the collision of smaller states. Towards the accomplishment of this most desirable object, however, it is indispensable tnat each nation should preserve the remem- brance of its own d.'stinct origin, and look to the glory of its own people, with an anxious and peculiar care. Il is quite right that the Scotch should plori' with their aged sovereign in the name of Britain: and that, when considered with reference to foreign states, Britain should exhibit a united whole, intent only upon up- holding and extending the glory of that empire which her united forces have formed. But it is equally important that her ancient metro- polis should not degenerate into a provincial town; and that an independent nation, once the rival of England, should remember, M^ith pride, ihc peculiar glories by which her people have been distinguished. Without this, the whole good effects of the rivalry of the two nations will be entirely lost ; and the genius of her different people, in place of emulating and improving each other, will be drawn into one centre, where all that is original and cha- racteristic will be lost in the overwhelming influence of prejudice and fashion. Such an event would be an incalculable ca'amity to the metropolis, and to the genius of this country. It is this catastrophe which Fletcher of Salton so eloquently foretold, when he opposed the union M-ith England in the Scottish Parliament. Edinburgh Mould then become like Lyons, or Toulouse, or Venice, a provincial town, supported only by the occa- sional influx of the gentlemen in its neighbour- hood, and the business of the courts of law which have their seat within its walls. The city and the nation which have produced or been adorned by David Hume, Adam Smith, Robert Burns, Dugald Stewart, Principal Ro- bertson, and Waller Scott, would cease to exist ; and the traveller would repair to her classical Bcenes, as he now does to Venice or Ferrara, to lament the decay of human genius which follows the union of independent states. Nor would such an event be less injurious to the general progress of science and arts throughout the empire. It is impossible to doubt, that the circumstance of Scotland being a separate kingdom, and maintaining a rivaf- ship with Englaml, has done incalculable good to both counlries — that it has given rise to a succession of great men, whose labours have enli;rhtened and improved mankind, who woulil not otherwise have acted upon the carc'body knows with what serious apprehension a French in- vasion was contemplated in this country, within our own recolleclion. It is of incalculable importance, tnerefore, that some means should be taken to preserve alive the martial spirit which the recent triumphs have awakened; and to do this, in so prominent a way as may attract the atten tion of the most thoughtless, and force them on the observation of the most inconsiderate. It is from men of this description — from the young, the gay, and the active, that our armies are filled; and it is on the spirit with which they are animated that the national safety de- pends. Unless they are impressed with the recollection of past achievements, and a sense of the glories of that country which they are to defend, it will little avail us in the moment of danger, that the victories on which every one now dwells with exultation, are faithfully recorded in history, and Avell known to the sedentary and pacific part of our population. It is upon the preservation of this spirit that the safety of every nation must depend.— It is in vain that it may be encircled with fortressrs, or defended by mountains, or begirt by «he ocean; its real security is to be found in the spirit and the valour of its pecplc. The army which enters the field in the conviction Hi at it is to conquer, has already gained the day. 1 h«» people, who recollect with pride the achieve ments of their forefathers, will not provc im worthy of them in the field of bnlile. The remembrance of their heroic actions preserved the independence of the Swiss repuMics. amulsl the powerful empires by which they were sur- rounded; and the glory of her arnucs, jomed ro ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. to ihe lermr of hrr name, xiphcld the Roman empire for rcninrics afier the warlike spirit of ihc people was extinct. It is this which constitutes Ihc strength and multiplies the Iri- r veteran soldiers; and it is this ui ' r< the qualiiics'of military valour ai> teditary in a nation. L , ,■, aoeordiiigly, whose achicve- inrnla, to sanctify ihc cause in which they were to be engaged. The Swiss peasants, for five hundred years after ilx- establishment of their independence, assembled on the fields of Morgarten and Lau- pon, and spread garlands over the graves of the fallen warriors, and prayed for the souls cf those who had died for their country's free- dom. The Romans attached a superstitious reverence to the rock of the capitol, and loaded lt« leinplcs with the spoils of the world, and looked back with a mixture of veneration and pride, to the struggles which it had witnessed, and the triumphs which it had won. " Capitoli immobile saxum." .*^" ■ !s Manlius remained in sight of the caj enemies found it impossible to ob- tain a conviction of the charges against him. When Scipio Africanus was accused by a fac- tion ia the forum, in place of answering the charge, he turned to the capitol, and invited ihe people to accompany him to the temple of Jupiter, and return thanks for the defeat of the C'arthagenians. Such was the influence of local associations on that severe people ; and so natural is it for the human mind to imbody its recollections in some external object ; and 60 important an eflect are these recollections fitted to have, when they are perpetually brought back to the public mind by the sight of the objects to which they have been attached. The erection of a national monument, on a *^'-'- 1 to the greatness of the events it is ••>' 'onimemorate, seems better calcu- laied ili;ui any other measure to perpetuate the spirit which the events of our times have awakened in this country. It will force itself on the observation of the most thoughtless, and recall the recollection of danger and glory, <*"' ^'•r of peaceful life. Thousands «b- '1 otherwise have cast a thought opon the glory of their countrj', will by it be awakened to a sense of what befits the de- HcendanLs of those j?reat men who have died in the cause of national freedom. While it will lesiify Ihc ffratitude of the nation to de- parted wdih, it will serve at Ihe same time to mark the distinction which similar victories may win. Like the Roman capitol, it will Mand at once the monument of former great- new, and the pledge of future glory. Nor is it to be imagined that the national monument in London is sufficient for this pur« pose, and that the commencement of a siniilaf undertaking in Edinburgh or Dublin is an un- necessary or superfluous proceeding. It is quite proper, that in the metropolis of the United Empire, the trophies of its common triumphs should be found, and that the na- tional funds should there be devoted to the formation of a monument, worthy of the splendid achievements which her united forces have performed. But the whole benefits of the emulation between the two nations, from which our armies have already derived such signal advantage, would be lost, if Scotland were to participate only in the triumphs of her sister kingdom, without distinctly mark- ing its own peculiar and national pride, in the glory of her own people. The valour of the Scottish regiments is known and celebrated from one end of Europe to the other; and this circumstance, joined to the celebrity of the poems of Ossian, has given a distinction to our soldiers, to Avhich, for so small a body of men, there is no parallel in the histor)' of the present age. Would it not- be a subject of re- proach to this country, if the only land in Avhich no record of their gallantry is to be found, was the land which gave them birth; and that the traveller who has seen the tartan hailed with enthusiasm on every theatre of Europe, should find it forgotten only in the metropolis of that kingdom which owes its salvation to the bravery by which it has been distinguished ? The animating effects, moreover, which the sight of a national trophy is fitted to have on a martial people, would be entirely lost in this country, if no other monument to Scottish or Irish valour existed than the monument in London. — There is not a hundredth part of our population who have ever an opportunity of going to that cit}'; or to whom the existence even of such a record of their triumph could be known. Even upon those who may see it, the peculiar and salutaiy effect of a national monument would be entirely lost. It Avould be regarded as a trophy of English glory ; and however much it might animate our descend- ants to maintain the character of Britain on the field of European warfare, it would leave wholly untouched those feelings of generous emulation by which the rival nations of Eng land and Scotland have hitherto been animated towards each other, and to the existence of which, so much of their common triumphs have been owinsr. T ■ ■ It IS in the preservation of this feeling of rivalry that \vc anticipate the most important effects of a national monument in this me- tropolis. There is no danger that the ancient animosity of the two nations will ever revive, or that the emulation of our armies will lead them to prove unfaithful to the common cause in which they must hereafter be engaged. The stern feelings of feudal hatred with which the armies of England and Scotland formerly met at Flodden or Bannockburn, have now yielded to the emulation and friendship which fornj the surest basis of their common prosperity But it is of the last importance that these feci- NATIONAL MONUMENTS. 77 ings of national rivalry should not be extin- guished. In every part of the world the good effects of. this emulation have been expe- rienced. It is recorded, that at the siege of Namur, when the German troops were re- pulsed from the breach, King William ordered his English guards to advance ; and the veteran warrior was so much affected with the devoted gallantry with which they pressed on to the assault, that, bursting into tears, he exclaimed, "See how my brave English fight." At the storm of Bhurtpoor, when one of the British regiments was forced back by the dreadful fire that played on the breach, one of the na- tive regiments was ordered to advance, and these brave men cheered as they passed the British troops, who lay trembling in the trenches. Everybody knows the distinguished gallantry Avith which the Scottish and Irish re- giments, in all the actions of the present war, have sought to maintain their ancient reputa- tion ; and it is not to be forgotten, that the first occasion on which the steady columns of France were broken by a charge of cavalry, when the leading regiments of England, Scot- land, and Ireland, bore down with rival valour on their columns ; and in the enthusiastic cry cf the Grays, "Scotland for ever," we may perceive the value of those national recollec- tions which it is the object of the present edi- fice to reward and perpetuate. If this spirit shall live in her armies ; if the rival valour which was formerly excited in their fatal wars against each other, shall thus continue to animate them Mdien fighting against their common enemies, and if the remem- brance of former division is preserved only to cement the bond of present union, Britain and Ireland may well, like the Douglas and Percy, both together "be confident against the world in arms." Foreign foe or false beguiling, Shall our union ne'er divide, Hand in hand, while peace is smiling, And in battle side by side. There is no fact more certain than that a due appreciation of the grand or the beautiful in architectural design is not inherent in any individual or in any people ; and that towards the formation of a correct public taste, the ex- istence of fine models is absolutely essential. It is this which gives men who have travelled in Italy or Greece so evident a superiority in considering the merits of the works of art in this country over those who have not had similar advantages ; and it is this which renders taste hereditary among a people who have the models of ancient excellence continually be- fore their eyes. The taste of Athens continued to distinguish its people long after they had ceased to be remarkable for any other and more honourable quality ; and Rome itself, in the days of its imperial splendour, was com- pelled to borrow, from a people whom she had vanquished, the trophies by which her victories were to be commemorated. To this day the lovers of art flock from the most distant parts of the world to the Acropolis, and dwell with rapture on its unrivalled beauties, and seek to inhale, amid the ruins that surround them, a portion of the spirit by which they were con- ceived. The remains of ancient Rome stil serve as the model of everything that is great m the designs of modern architects ; and in the Parthenon and the Coliseum we find the originals on which the dome of St. Peter's and the piazza St. Marco have been formed. It is a matter of general observation, accordingly, that the inhabitants of Italy possess a degree of taste both in sculpture, architccturc.'and painting, which few persons of the most culti- vated understanding in transalpine countries can acquire. So true it is, that the existence of fine models lays the only foundation of a correct public taste ; and that the transference of the model of ancient excellence to this country is the only means of giving to our people the taste by which similar excellence is to be produced. Now it has unfortunately happened that the Doric architecture, to which so much of the beauty of Greece and Italy is owing, has been hitherto little understood, and still less put in practice in this country. We meet with few persons who have not visited the remains of classical antiquity, who can conceive the matchless beauties of the temples of Minerva at Athens, or of Neptune at Paestum. And, indeed, if our conceptions of the Doric be taken from the few attempts at imitation of it which are here to be met with, they would fall very far short, indeed, of what the originals are fitted to excite. We are far from underrating the genius of modern architects, and it would be ungrateful to insinuate, that sufiicient ability for the formation of an original design is not to be found. But in the choice of designs for a building which is to stand for centuries, and from which the taste of the metropolis in future ages is in a greater measure to be formed, it is absolutely essential to fix upon some model of known and approved excellence. The erection of a monument in had taste, or even of doubtful beautj', might destroy the just conceptions on this subject, which are beginning to prevail, and throw the national taste a century back at the time when it is making the most rapid advances towards pcr- lection. It is in vain to expect that human genius can ever make any thing more beauti- ful than the Parthenon, 'it is lolly, therefore, to tempt fortune, when certainty is in our hands. There are many reasons besides, which seem in a peculiar manner to recommend the Doric temple for the proposed monumems. By the habits of modern times, a different species of architecture has been devoted to the differ' ent purposes to which buildings may he ap- plied ; and it is difficult to avoid believni;:, that there is something in the separate .styles which is peculiarly adapted to the dilferonl emotions they are intended to excite. I l>e light tracery, and lofty roof, and airy pillars of the Gothic, seem to accord well with the sublime feelings and spiritual fervour of re- ligion. The massy wall, and gloomy character of the castle, bespeak the abode ol feudal power and the pageantry of barbaric nia;;ni. ficence. The beautiful porticoes, and cnlumiijv, and rich cornices of the Ionic or Corinlhiai., 78 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Sfem well a(lapteil for the public edifices in a groat city ; for those which are dcstirted for amusement, or to serve for the purpose of public ornament. The I'alladian style is that of all others best adapted for the magnificence of private dwellinirs, and overwhelms the spectator by a flood of beauty, aj^ainst which the rules of criticism arc unalilc to withstand. *If any of these styles of architecture were to be transferred from buildinijs destined for one purpose to those destined for another, the im- propriety of the chan!:re would appear very conspicuous. The iior^reous s]ilendonr of tiie Palladian front would he entirely misplaced, in an edifice destined for the purpose of rc- lifrion ; and the rich pinnacles and gloomy aisles of the Gothic, would accord ill with the scene of modern amusement or festivity. Now a National Monument is an edifice of a very sinjjnlar kind, and such as to require a style of architecture peculiar to itself. The Grecian Doric, as it is exhibited in the Par- thenon, appears singularly well adapted for this puqiose. Its form and character is asso- ciated in every cultivated mind with the re- collections of classical history ; and it recalls the brilliant conceptions of national glory as they were received during the ardent and enthusiastic period of youth; while its stern and massy form befits an edifice destined to commemorate the severe virtues and manly character of war. The efl^ect of such a build- ing, and the influence it would have on the public taste, would be increased to an in- definite degree, by the interest of the purpose 1o which it is destined. An edifice which re- called at once the interest of classical associa- tion, and commemorated the splendour of our own achievements, would impress itself in the most indelible manner on the public mind, and force the beauty of its design on the most careless observer. And there can be no doubt that this impression would be far greater, just because it arose from a style of building hitherto unknown in this country, and pro- duced an efl^ect as dissimilar from that of any other architectural design, as the national emotions which it is intended to awaken are from those to which ordinary edifices are des- tined. We cannot help considering this as a matter of great importance to this city, and to the taste of the age in M-hich we live. It is no inconsiderable matter to have one building of faultless design erected, and to have the youth of our people accustomed from their infancy to behold the work of Phidias. But the ulti- mate rffecl which such a circumstance might produce on the taste of the nation, and the celebrity of this metropolis, is far more im- portant. It is in vain to conceal, that the wealth and the fashion of England is every day attracting the higher part of our society to another capital; and that Edinburgh can never possess attractions of the same descrip- tion with London, sufficient to enable her to stand an instant in the struggle. But while London must always eclipse this city in all that depends on wealth, power, or fashionable elegance, nature has given to it the means of establishing' a superiority i( a higher and a more permanent kind. The matchless beauty of its situation, the superb cliffs by which it is surrounded, the magnificent prospects of ihe bay, which it commands, have given to Edinburgh the means of becoming the most baiutifid town that exists in the world. And the inexhaustible quarries of free-stone, which lie in the immediate vicinity, have rendered architectural embellishment an easier objec* in this city than in any other in the empire. It cannot be denied, however, that much still remains to be done in this respect, and that every stranger observes the striking contrast between the beauty of its private houses, and the deplorable scantiness of its public build- ings. The establishment of a taste for edifices of an ornamental description, and the gradual purification of the popular taste, which may fairly be expected from the influence of so perfect a model as the Parthenon of Athens, would ultimately, in all probability, render this city the favourite residence of the fine arts ; the spot to which strangers would re- sort, both as the place Avhere the rules of taste are to be studied, and the models of art are to be found. And thus, while London is the Rome of the empire, to which the young, and the ambitious, and the gay, resort for the pur- suit of pleasure, of fortune, or of ambition, Edinburgh might become another Athens, in which the arts and the sciences flourished, under the shade of her ancient fame, and established a dominion over the minds of men more permanent than even that which the Roman arms were able to effect. The Greeks always fixed on an eminence for the situation of their temples, and what- ever was the practice of a people of such ex- quisite taste is Avell worthy of imitation. The Acropolis of Athens, the Acrocorinthus of Corinth, the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, in ^gina, are instances of the beauty of these edifices when placed on such conspicuous situations. At Athens, in particular, the tem- ples of Jupiter Olympius and of Theseus are situated in the plain; but although the former is built in a style of magnificence to Miiich there is no parallel, and is double the size of the Parthenon, its effect is infinitel}' less strik- ing than that of the temple of Minerva, which crowns the Acropolis, and meets the eye from every part of the adjacent country. The tem- ple of Jupiter Panhellenius, in the island of ^gina, is neither so large nor so beautiful as the temple of Theseus; but there is no one who ever thought of comparing the efliect which the former produces, crowning a rich and wooded hill, to that which is felt on view- ing the latter standing in the plain of Attica. The temple of Neptune, at Poestum, has a sublime effect from the desolation that sur- rounds it, and from the circumstance of there being no eminence for many miles to interfere with its stern and venerable form ; but there is no one who must not have felt that the grandeur of this edifice would be entirely lost if it was placed in a modem city, and over- topped by buildings destined for the most or- dinary purposes. The temple of Vesta, at Tivoli, perched on the crag which overhangs the cataract, is admired by all the world ; bu NATIONAL MONUMENTS. the temple to the same goddess, on the banks of the Tiber, at Rome, is passed over M-ithout notice, though the intrinsic beauty of the one is nearly as great as that of the other. In the landscapes too of Claude and Poussin, who knew so well the situation in which every building appears to most advantage, the ruins of temples are almost always placed on pro- minent fronts, or on the summit of small hills; in such a situation,. in short, as the Cal- ton Hill of Edinbui-gh presents. The practice of the ancient Greeks, in the choice of situa- ;icns for their temples, joined to that of the modern Italian painters in their ideal repre- sentations of the same objects, leaving no room to doubt that the course which they fol- lowed was that which the peculiar nature of the building required. But all objects of local interest sink into insignificance compared with the vast effect which a restoration of so perfect a relic of antiquity as the Parthenon of Athens would have on the national taste, and ultimately on the spread of refined and elevating feelings among the inhabitants of the countr)^ As this is a subject of the very highest import- ance, and which is not generally so well understood as it should be, we crave the in- dulgence of our' readers to a few observations, conceived in the warmest feeling of interest in modern art, but a strong sense of the only means by which it can be brought to the ex- cellence of which it is susceptible. It is observed by Madame de Stael, " that architecture is the only art which approaches, in its effects, to the works of nature," and there are few, we believe, who have not, at some period of their lives, felt the truth of the observation. The Cathedral of York, the Dome of St. Paul's, or the interior of St. Peter's, are scarcely eclipsed in our recollec- tion with the glories of human creation ; and the impression which they produce is less akin to admiration of the talent of an artist, than to the awe and veneration which the tra- veller feels when he first enters the defiles of the Alps. It has often been a matter of regret to per- sons of taste in this country, that an art so magnificent in its monuments, and so power- ful in its effect, has been so little the object of popular cultivation ; nor is it perhaps easy to understand, how a people so much alive to the grand and beautiful in the other departments of taste, should so long have re- mained insensible to the attractions of one of its most interesting branches. Many causes have, doubtless, conspired to produce this effect; but among these, the principal, we are persuaded, is to be found in the absence of any vionuments of approved excellence to form the taste, and excite the admiration of the public. And, in this respect, there is an important dis- tinction, Avhich is often overlooked, between architecture and the other departments of art or literature. In poetry, painting, or sculpture, the great works of former times are in everybody's hands ; and the public taste has long ago been formed on the study of those remains of an- cient genius, which still continue, notwith- standing the destruction of the people wnc gave them birth, to govern the imagination of succeeding ages. The poetry of Virgil, aau the eloquence of Cicero, form the first objects to which the education of the young is di- rected ; the designs of Raphael and Correggio have been multiplied by the art of engraving, to almost as great an (jxtcnt as the classical authors ; and casts, at least, of the Apollo and the Venus, are familiar to every person who has paid the smallest attention to the beauty of the human form. It is on the habitual study of these works that the public taste has been formed; and the facility of cngravin" and painting has extended our acquaintance with their excellencies, almost as far as knowledge or education have extended in the world. But with architecture the case is widely different. Public edifices cannot be published and circulated with the same facility as an edition of Virgil, or a print of Claude Lorraine. To copy or restore such monuments, requires an expenditure of capital, and an exertion of skill, almost as great as their original con- struction. Nations must be far advanced in wealth and attainment before such cosiiy un- dertakings can be attempted. And if the su- perstition of an earlier age has produced structures of astonishing magnitude and ge- nius, they are of a kind which, however venerable or imposing, are not calculated to have the same effect in chastening the public taste, with those that arose in that auspicious period when all the finer powers of the mind had attained their highest exaltation. It thus unfortunately happens, that architecture can- not share in the progress which the other fine arts are continually making from the circula- tion and study of the works of antiquity; and successive nations are often obliged to begin anew the career which their predecessors have run, and fall inevitably into the errors which they had learned to avoid. The possibility of multiplying drawings or engravings of the edifices of antiquity, or of informing distant nations of their proportions and dimensions, has but little tendency to obviate this disadvantage. Experience has shown that the best drawings convey a most inadequate conception of architectural gran- deur, or of the means by which it is produced. To those, indeed, who have seen the originals, such engravings are highly valuable, because they awaken and renew the impression which the edifices themselves have made; but to those who have not had this advantage, they, speak an unknown language. This is matter of common observation ; and there is no tra- veller who has relumed from Greece or Italy, who will not confirjn its truth. It is as im- possible to convey a conception of the exterior of the Parthenon, or the interior of Sr. Peters, by the finest drawings accomranied by the most accurate statement of their dimensions, as to give the inhabitants of a level country a true sense of the sublimity of the Alps, by exhibiting a drawing of the snowy peaks of Mont Blanc, and informing him of its aliitnd* according to the latest trigcnomctncal obser vations. 80 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Even if drawings could convey a concep- tion of the original structures, the taste for this art is so extremely limited that it could have but little cllect in obviating the disadvan- a"e of their remote situation. There is not one person in a hundred who ever looks at a drawing, or, if he does, is capable of deriving ihe bniallest pleasure from the finest produc- tions of that branch of art. To be reduced to turn over a portfolio of engravings, is prover- bially spoken of as the most Avretched of all occupations in a drawing-room ; and it is no uncommon thing to see the productions of Claude, or Poussin, or Williams, abounding in all the riches of architectural ornament, passed over without the slightest indication of emotion, by persons of acknowledged taste in other respects. And yet the same individuals, who are utterly insensible to architectural ex- cellence in this form, could not avoid acquiring a certain taste for its beauties, if they were the subject of /ifiiiViifl? observation, in edifices at home, or obtruded upon their attention in the course of foreign travelling. Besides this, the architect is exposed to in- surmountable difficulties, if the cultivation of those around him has not kept pace with his own, and if they are incapable of feeling the beauty of the edifices on which his taste has been formed. It is to no purpose that his own taste may have been improved by stud3'ing the ruins of Athens or Rome, unless the taste of kis employers has undergone a similar ameliora- tion, his genius will remain dormant, and his architectural drawings be suffered to lie in unnoticed obscurity in the recesses of his portfolio. The architect, it should always be remembered, cannot erect edifices, as the poet writes verses, or the painter covers his can- vas, without any external assistance. A great expenditure of capital is absolutely essential to the production of any considerable spec imen of his art : and, therefore, unless he can com- municate his own enthusiasm to the wealthy, and unless a growing desire for architectural embellishments is sufficient to overcome the mherent principle of parsimony, or the inte- rested views of individuals, or the jealousy of public bodies, he will never have an opportu- nity of displaying his genius, or all his at- tempts will be thwarted by persons incapable of appreciating it. And unfortunately the talents of no artist, how great soever, can sfTect such a revolution; it can be brought about only by the continued obso-vation of beauti- ful cdlfircs, and the diffusion of a taste for the art among all the well-educated classes of the people. 'J'he states of antiquity lay so immediately in the vicinity of each other, that the progress of architecture was uninterrupted; and thus people of each nation formed their taste by the study of the structures of those to whom they lay adjacent. The Athenians, in particular, in raising the beautiful edifices which have so long been the admiration of the world, pro- ceeded entirely upon the model of the build- ings by which they were surrounded, and the temple of Jupiter Panhellcnius, in the island of ^gina, which is said to have been built by tf acus before the Trojan War, remains to this day to testify the species of edifices on which their national taste was formed. The Ionic order, as its name denotes, arose in the wealthy regions of Asia Minor; and when the Athe- nians turned their attention to the embellish- ment of their city, they had, in their immcliate vicinit}', edifices capable of pointing our the excellencies of that beautiful style. Thj Ro- mans formed their taste upon the architecture of the people whom they had subdu3d, and adopted all their orders from the Grecian structures. Their early temples were exactly similar to those of their masters in the art of design; and Avhen the national taste was formed upon that model, they combined them, as real genius will, into diiferent forms, and left the Coliseum and the baths of Dioclesian as monuments of the grandeur and originality of their conceptions. In modern times, the restoration of taste first began around the edifices of antiquity. "On the revival of the art in Italy," says Lord Aber- deen, " during the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- turies, the great architects who adorned that countrj' naturally looked for instruction to the monuments with which they were surrounded: the wrecks and fragments of Imperial Rome. These were not only successfull}^ imitated, but sometimes even surpassed by the Italian art- ists; for Bramante and Michael Angelo, Pal- ladio and Bernini, desigiied and executed works which, although of unequal merit, may fairly challenge a comparison with the boasted productions of the Augustan age." Italy and France, accordingly, have reaped the full ad- vantage of their local proximity to the monu- ments of former genius ; and the character of their buildings evinces a decided superiority to the works of architects in other states. In the south of Europe, therefore, the pro- gress of architecture has been uninterrupted, and each successive age has reaped the full benefit which the works of those which pre- ceded it was fitted to confer. But the remote- ness of their situation has deprived the in- habitants of the north of Eurojie of this advan- tage ; and, while the revival of letters and the arts has developed the taste of the people of this country in other respects, to a very great degree, their knowledge of architecture is )'et in its infancy. In this city the most remarka- ble proofs of this deficiency were annually exhibited till a very recent period. The same age which was illustrated by the genius of Sir Walter Scott, and Campbell, and Dugald Stewart, witnessed the erection of Nelson's monument and St. George's church. The extraordinary improvement in the public taste, which has taken place since the peace of 1814, opened the Continent to so large a pro- portion of our population, evinces, in the most unequivocal manner, the influence of the actual siglit of fine models in training the mind to the perception of architectural beauty. That archi- tecture is greatly more an object both of study and interest than it was ten years ago, is matter of common observation ; and the most convincing proof of the extension of a taste for its excellencies is to be found in the rapid increase and extensive circulation of en gravings of the most interesting ruins on the 81 Continent, which has taken place of late years. These engravings, however incapable of con- veying an adequate idea of the originals, to those who have never left this country, yet serve as an admirable auxiliary to the memo- ry, in retaining the impression which they had produced on those who have had that advantage; and, accordingh^, their sale is almost entirely confined to persons of that de- scription. Nor is the improvement less gratifying in the style of the edifices, and the genius of the architects Avho have arisen during that period. The churches of Marybone and St. Pancras, in London, notwithstanding some striking defects, are by far the finest buildings which have been raised in the metropolis since the days of Sir Christopher Wren. The new street in front of Carlton House, including the Quadrant, contains some most beautiful specimens of architecture; although the absurd rage for novelty has disfigured it by other structures of extraordinary deformity. The buildings which adjoin, and look into the Regent Park, are the most chaste and elegant examples of the application of the Grecian architecture to private edifices which the metropolis can boast. Nor is the improvement less conspicuous in our own capital, where the vicinity of free- stone quarries of uncommon beauty, and the advantages of unrivalled situation, have ex- cited a very strong desire for architectural embellishment. It is hardly possible to believe that Waterloo Place, the Royal Terrace, Leo- pold Place, and the Melville Monument, have been erected in the same age which witnessed the building of Lord Nelson's monument on the Calton Hill, or the recent edifices in the Parliament Square. The remarkable start which the genius as well as the taste of our architects has taken since the public attention was drawn to this art, affords a striking proof of the influence of popular encouragement in fostering the conceptions of native genius, and illustrates the hopelessness of expecting that our artists will ever attain to excellence, when the taste of the people does not keep pace with their exertions. But the causes which have recently given so remarkable a stimulus to architectural ex- ertion are temporary in their nature. It is impossible to expect that the Continent will always be open to our youth, or that the public attention can be permanently directed to the arts of peace, with the interest which is so remarkable at this time. Other wars may arise wliich will shut us out from the south of Europe ; the interest of politics may again withdraw the national attention from the fine arts; or the war of extermination, of which Greece is now the theatre, may utterly destroy those monuments which have so long survived to direct and improve the world. From the present aspect of affairs on the Continent, there seems every reason to apprehend that one or both of these effects may very soon take place. These circumstances render it the more desirable, that some steps should be taken to fix in this island the fleeting percep- tion of architectural beauty which is now prevalent; and, if possible, render our people 6 NATIONAL MONUMENTS. independent of foreign travelling, or of the borrowed aid of foreign edifices. Lord Aberdeen, like all other travellers of taste, speaks in the highest terms of the im- pression produced by the unrivalled edifices of ancient Greece; and contrasts the pure and faultless taste by which they are distinguished, with the ephemeral productions which in modern times have arisen, in the vain attemp* to improve upon their proportions. I£ we seek tor the manifestation of pure taste in the monuments which surround us, our search will but too often prove fruitless. We must turn our eyes towards those regions. Where on the Egean shore a city stands. Built nobly! Here, — it has been little understood, for it has been rarely felt; its country is Greece, — its throne the Acropolis of Athens. "By a person writing on the subject of architecture, the name of Athens can scarcely be pronounced without emotion, and, in the mind of one who has had the good fortune to examine at leisure its glorious remains, im- pressions are revived which time and distance can never obliterate. It is diflicult to resist the desire of fondly dwelling on the descriptions of monuments, to the beauty of which, although they have been long well known, and accu- rately described, we feel that no language can do full justice. But, as it is not the purpose of this inquiry to give those practical or de- tailed instructions in the art, which may te so much better attained from other sources, I will only observe in this place, what it is of con- sequence to keep in view, because no descrip- tions or representations, however accurate, can give adequate notions of the effect of the originals, that, notwithstanding the lapse of ages; the injuries of barbarism, and fanatical violence, Athens still presents to the student the most faultless models of ornamental archi- tecture; and is still, therefore, the best school for the acquisition of the highest attributes of his art."— pp. 35, 36. Speaking of the numerous attempts at no- velty, which have been made in modern times, he observes: "It may be observed in general, that few of those numerous changes of taste wliicli an in- satiable desire of novelty, or the caprice of fashion, may have sanctioned for a time, have been ultimately successful ; for these ephe- meral productions, however warmly sup- ported, have been found successively to vanisli before the steady and permanent attractions of Grecian beauty, and we shall probably feel dis- posed to admit, that the ornamental details of the standard models of antiquity, combined and modified by discretion and judgment, ap- pear to ofl^er a suflicient variety for the exer- cise of invention and genius in this province of the art."— p. 30. . And comparing these with the remains ol Grecian architecture, he crserves: " The precious remains of Grecian art were long neglected, and the most beautiful were, in truth, nearly inaccessible to the t. 'nst.an world. It is almost in our o«-n t.mo, that ob- stacles, formerly insurmountable, have been since vanquished; and that the treasures of ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS E?SA I'S *rt, still unfortunately in the custody of igno- lanrr ami l>arbarisni, have not only been ^isiieil, but iiavc been aceurately measured and delineated. Hencefortli. therefore, tliese exquisite remains should form tlie chiel'' study of the architect vrho aspires to permanent reputation; other modes are transitory and uneeriain, but the essential qualities of Gre- cian excellence, as they arc founded on reason. and are consistent with fitness and proprietj-, will ever continue to deserve his first care." — pp. 215,216. The arfrument which is most commonly urged at^ainsl the restoration of an ancient structure, is, that it is degrading to cnjnj the architecture of another people. It is both hu- miliating to our artists, it is said, and inju- rious to the progress of art, to imitate what has been already done. The Romans never copied; but, borrowing merely the general forms of the Grecian architecture, moulded them into ditferent combinations, which gave a diderent character to their style of building. Such also should be the course which we should adopt. This very plausible argument proceeds upon an inattention to the successive steps by which excellence in the fine arts is attained, and a mistaken conception of the height to which we have already ascended in our taste or knowledge of architecture. It is quite true that the Romans did not copy the Grecian tem- ples; and that the modern Italians have not thought of attempting a restoration of the Coli- seum or the Pantheon. But it is to be recol- Jected that the originals tvere u-ithin their reach, and hiul already cxor/sffZ their salutary influence upon the public taste. The ancient Romans had only to go to Pcestum, Agrigentum, or Syracuse, to behold the finest Grecian temples; and their warlike youth, in the course of the military expeditions to Avhich all the citizens were liable, had perpetually, in their eastern dominions, the Grecian edifices placed before their eyes. Michael Angelo, Poussin, and Claude Lorraine, lived amidst the ruins of an- cient Rome, and formed their taste from their earliest youth, upon the /,«6i7?(«/ contemplation of those monuments. For them to have co- pied these buildings, with a view to the re- storation of the public taste, would have been as absurd as for us to copy York or Lincoln Ca- thedrals, in order to revive an admiration for the Gothic architecture. But is there no ditference between the situ- ation of a people, who, like the ancient Romans and modern Italians, had the great models of antiquity continually before their eyes, and that of a people, who, like the inhabitants of this island, have ir<> vtodds in the boric style, either £o form their tasce, or guide their exer- tions, and who have no means of reaching the remains of that order which exist, but by a journey of many thousand milesl Of the in- fluence of the study of ancient excellence in improving the taste, both of architects and peo- ple, no one acquainted with the subject can have jhe smallest doubt ; and it is stated in the strongest terms, by the author whose obser- vations have just been mentioned. "Amidst the. ruins of Rome, the great Italian architects formed their taste. They studied the relics of ancient grandeur, with all the diligence of en thusiasm. They measured the proportions, and drew tlie details, and modelled the members But when their artists were employed by the piety or magnificence of the age, they never re ■ stored the examples by which they were sur rounded, and which were the objects of theii hdbituiil sludij. The architects did notilugerin contemplation of their predecessors; former generations had advanced and they proceeded." Now such being the influence of the remains of antiquity in guiding the inventions, and chastening the taste of modern artists, is there no advantage in putting our architects in this particular on a level ivith those of Italy, and com- pensating, in some degree, by the restoration of the finest monuments of ancient genius, the local disadvantages with which a residence in this remote part of the xvorld is necessarily at- tended 1 By doing this, we are not precluding the development of modern invention ; we are, on the contrary, laying the surest foundation for it, by bringing our artists to the point from which the Italian artists took their departure. When this is done, the inventive genius of the two nations will be able to commence their career with equal adv.antages. Tillitis attempt- ed, we can hardly hope that we shall overtake them in the race. Suppose, that instead of possessing the Coliseum and the Pantheon within their walls, and having made their pro- portions the continual subject of their study, the Roman artists had been obliged to travel into the interior of Asia to visit their ruins, and that this journey, from the expense with which it was attended, had been within the reach only of a few of the most opulent and adventurous of their nobility; can there be the slightest doubt that the fine arts in that city would have been greatly indebted to any Ro- man pontiff who restored those beautiful mo- numents in his own dominions'? and yet this benefit is seriously made a matter of doubt, Avhen the restoration of the Parthenon is pro- posed, in a part of the world where the remains of ancient genius are placed at the distance of two thousand miles. The greatest exertions of original genius, both in literature and arts, by Avhich modem Europe has been distinguished, have been made in an age when the wealth of ancient times was thoroughly understood. The age of Tasso andMachiavel/o//oHY(i the restoration of letters in Italy. If we compare their writings with those which preceded that great event, the diflerence appears almost incalculable. It Avas on the stu- dy of Grecian and Roman eloquence, that Mil- ton trained himself to those sublime concep- tions Avhich have immortalized his name. Raphael and Michael Angelo gave but slight indications of original genius till their pow- ers were awakened and their taste refined by the study of the Grecian sculpture. Statuar}', in modern times, has nowhere been cultivated with such success as at Rome, amidst the work? of former ages; and Chantry has declared that the arrival of the Elgin marbles in the British Museum is to be regarded as an era in the pro- gress of art in this country. Architecture has attained its greatest perfection in France and NATIONAL MONUMENTS. 83 Italy, where the study of the remains of anti- quity which those countries contain, has had so powerful an influence upon the public taste. Those who doubt the influence of the restoration of the Parthenon, in improving the efforts of original genius in this country, reason in op- position not only to the experience of past times, in all the other departments of literature and art, but to all that we know of the causes to which the improvement of architecture itself has been owing. It is no answer to this to say that drawings and prints of these edifices are open to all the world; and that an architect may study the proportions of the Parthenon as well in Stuart's Athens, as on the Calton Hill of Edin- burgh. An acquaintance with drawings is limited to a small number, even in the most polished classes of society, and to the middling and lower orders is almost unknown ; where- as, public edifices are seen by all the world, and obtruda themselves on the attention of the most inconsiderate. There are few persons who return from Greece or Italy, without a considerable taste for architectural beauty ; but during the war, when travelling was im- possible, the existence of Stuart's Athens and Piranesi's Rome produced no such efiect. Our architects, during the war, had these ad- mirable engravings constantly at their com- mand: but how wretched were their concep- tions before the peace had afforded them the means of studying the originals ! ■ The extra- ordinary improvement which both the style of our buildings, and the taste of our people have received, since the edifices of France and Italy were laid open to so large a proportion of the country, demonstrates the superior efficacy of actual observation, to the study of prints, in improving the public taste for architectural beauty. The engravings never become an object of interest till the originals have been seen. The recent attempts to introduce a new order of architecture in this island, demon- strate, that we have not as yet arrived at the point where the study of ancient models can be dispensed with. In the new street in front of Carlton House, every thing, which, if form- ed on the model of the antique, is beautiful ; every thing in which novelty has been at- tended is a deformity. It is evident, that more than one generation must pass away, before architecture is so thoroughly understood as to admit of the former landmarks being disre- garded. The belief that a Grecian temple cannot look beautiful, but in the climate and under the sun of Athens, is a total mistake. The clear atmosphere which prevails during the frosts of winter, or in the autumnal mon.hs, in Scotland, is as favourable to the display of architectural splendour, as the warm atmo- sphere of Greece. The Melville monument in St. Andrew's Square appears nowise inferior to the original in the Roman capitol. The gray and time-worn temples of Prestum are perhaps more sublime that the Grecian struc- tures which stLU retain the brightness and histre Iv which they were originally charac- terized. Of all the edifices which the genius of man ever conceived, the Doric temple is raosUndependento^i\ie adventitious advanta<»es of light and shade, and rests most securely on the intrinsic grandeur and solidity of its con struction. To say, that every people have an archi. tecture of their own, and that the Gothic is irretrievably fixed down upon this island, is a position unwarranted either by reason or authority. A nation is not bound to adhere to barbarous manners, because their ancestors were barbarous ; nor is the character of their literature to be fixed by the productions of its earliest writers. It is by its works in the period of its meridian splendour, that the opil nion of posterity is formed. The bow was once the national weapon of England, and to the skill with which it Avas used, our greatest victories have been owing; but that is no reason why it should be adhered to as the means of national defence after fire-arms have been introduced. If we must make something peculiar in the National Monument, let it be the peculiarity which distinguishes the period when architecture and the other fine arts have attained to their highest perfection, and not the period of their infancy. But the feudal and castellated forms arose during an age of ignorance and civil dissension. To compel us to continue that style as the national archi- tecture, would be as absurd as to consider Chaucer as the standard of English literature, or Duns Scotus as the perfection of Scotch eloquence. We do not consider the writers in the time of the Jameses as the model of our national literature. Why then should we con- fer that distinction on the architecture which arose out of the circumstances of the barba- rous period 1 For these reasons, we are compelled to dif- fer from the noble author, whose very inte- resting essay on Grecian architecture has done so much to awaken the world to a sense of its excellencies, in regard to the expediency of restoring the Parthenon in the National Monument of Scotland. From the taste which his work exhibits, and from the obvious supe- riority which he possesses over ourselves in estima'ting the beauties of Grecian architec- ture, we drew the strongest argument in favour of such a measure. It was from a study of the ruins of ancient Greece, that Lord Aber- deen acquired the information and taste which he possesses on this subject, and gained the superiority which he enjoys over his untra- velled countrymen. If they had the same means of visiting and studying the originals which he has possessed, we should agree Avith him in thinking, that the genius of the age should be directed 'to new combinations. But when this is not the case, we must be con- tent to proceed by slower degrees; and while nineteen-twentieths of our people do not know what the Parthenon is, and can perceive no- thing remarkable in the finest models of archi- tectural excellence, we must not thmk of forming new orders. It is enough if we can make them acquainted with those which already exist. The first step towards national excellence in the fine arts, is to feel the beawty of that which has already been done ; the se- cond, is to excel it. We must take the nrst 84 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. I 9tfp, before wc attempt the second. Having laid the foundation of national taste in archi- tecture, by restoring the finest model of anti- quity on the situation of ail others the best adapted for making its excellencies known, wc shall be prepared to form new edifices, and possibly to surpass those which antiquity has left. But till this is done, there is every rea» son to apprehend, that the efforts of our artists will be as ineffectual in obtaining true beauty as the genius of our writers was in obtaining real excellence, until the restoration of the classic authors gave talent its true direction, and public taste an unexceptionable standard. T * MARSHAL NEY. Tub memoirs connected with the French Revolution furnish an inexhaustible source of interesting discussion. We shall look in vain in any other period of history for the same splendid succei.sion of events; for a phantasmagoria in which characters so illus- trious are passed before the view ; or for in- dividuals whose passions or ambition have exercised an equally important influence on human affairs. When we enter upon the era of Napoleon, biography assumes the dignity of history ; the virtues and vices of individuals become inseparably blended with public mea- sures; and in the memoirs of contemporary writers, we turn for the secret springs of those great events which have determined the fate of nations. From the extraordinary interest, however, connected with this species of composition, has arisen an evil of no ordinary kind. Not France only, but Europe at large, being in- satiable for works of this kind, an immense number have sprung up of spurious origin, or doubtful authorit)'. Writing of memoirs has become a separate profession. A crowd of able young men devote themselves to this fas- cinating species of composition, which pos- sesses the interest of history without its dry- ness, and culls from the book of Time only the most brilliant of its flowers. Booksellers engage in the wholesale manufacture, as a mercantile speculation; an attractive name, an interesting theme, is selected ; the relations of the individuals whose memoirs are pro- fessed to be given to the world, are besought to furnish a few original documents or au- thentic anecdotes, to give an air of veracity to the composition ; and at length the memoirs are ushered forth to the world as the work of one who never wrote one syllable of them himself. Of this description are the soi-disant Memoirs of Fouche, Robespierre, Une Femme de Qualite, Louis the Eighteenth, and many others, which are now admitted to be the work of the manufacturers for the Parisian book- sellers, but arc nevertheless interspersed with many authentic and interesting anecdotes, derived from genuine sources, and contain in consequence much valuable matter for future nislory. In considering the credit due to any set of memoirs, one main point, of course, is, whe- ther they are published by a living author of • Momnlrpn (111 Mnrrrhnl Nrv, p'llilir'n par na ]''aiiiilli- rnri«, KmirnliT; l.omlrcs, IC.Uul , l^SS. lUackwood's Mngazinc, Oct. JS3a. character and station in society. If they are, there is at least the safeguard against impos- ture, which arises from the facility with which they may be disavowed, and the certainty that no man of character would permit a spurious composition to be palmed upon the world as his writing. The Memoirs, therefore, of Bour- rienne, Madame Junot, Savar}', and many others, may be relied on as at least the ad- mitted work of the persons whose names they bear, and as ushered into the world under the sanction and on the responsibility of living persons of rank or station in societ)% There are other memoirs, again, of such ex- traordinary ability as at once to bear the stamp of originality and veracity on their very face. Of this description are Napoleon's memoirs, dictated to Montholon and Gourgaud ; a work which bears in every page decisive marks of the clear conceptions, lucid ideas, and tranch- ant sagacity of -the Conqueror of Austerlitz and Rivoli. Judging from internal evidence, we are disposed to rank these invaluable Me- moirs much higher than the rambling and dis- cursive, though interesting work of Las Casas. They are not nearly so impassioned or ran- corous; facts are not so obviously distorted; party spirit is not so painfully conspicuous. With regret, we must add, that even these genuine memoirs, dictated by Napoleon him- self, as the groundwork for the history of his achievements, contain the marks of the weak- nesses as well as the greatness of his mind; an incessant jealousy of every rival who ap- proached even to his glory ; an insatiable passion for magnifying his own exploits ; a disregard of truth so remarkable in a person gifted with such extraordinary natural sagaci- ty, that it can be ascribed only to the poison- ous nnoral atmosphere which a revolution pro- duces. The Memoirs of Thibaudeau perhaps exhibit the most valuable and correct, as well as favourable picture of the emperor's min i. In the discussions on the great public mea- sures which were submitted to the Council of State at Paris, and, above all, in the clear and luminous speeches of Napoleon on ever}- sub- ject, whether of civil or military administra- tion, that occurred during his consulship, is to be found the clearest proof of the vast grasp and great capacity of his mind; and in their superiority to those of the other speakers, and, above all, of Thibaudeau himself, the best evidence of the fidelity of his reports. Next in value to those of Napoleon and Thibaudeau, we are inclined to place those of MARSHAL NEY. 85 Bonrrienne and the Duchess of Abrantes. The first of these writers, in addition to consider- able natural talents, enjoyed the inestimable ad- vantage of having been the school-fellow of Napoleon, and his private secretary during the most interesting period of his life ; that which elapsed from the opening of his Italian I Campaign, in 1796, to his accession to the throne in 1804. If Bourrienne could be entire- ly relied on, his Memoirs, with such sources of information, would be invaluable ; but un- fortunately, it is evident that he labours under a feeling of irritation at his former school- fellow, which renders it necessary to take his statements with some grains of allowance. Few men can forgive the extraordinary and unlooked-for elevation of their foi-mer equals ; and, in addition to this common source of pre- judice, it is evident that Bourrienne labours under another and a less excusable feeling. It is plain, even from his own admission, that he had been engaged in some money transac- tions of a doubtful character with M. Ouvrard, •which rendered his continuing in the highly I confidential situation of private secretary to the emperor improper ; and his dismissal from it has evidently tinged his whole narrative ■with a certain feeling of acrimony, which, if ' it has not made him actually distort facts, has at least caused them to appear in his hands through a medium coloured to a certain de- gree. The Duchess of Abrantes, like most of the other annalists of Napoleon, labours under prepossessions of a different kind. She was intimate with Napoleon from his childhood ; her mother had the future emperor on her knee from the day of his birth ; and the in- timacy between the two families continued so great, that when Napoleon arrived at the age of twenty-six, and felt, as he expresses it, the " besoin de se fixer," he actually proposed for the duchess's mother himself, who was a per- • son of great natural attractions, while he wished at the same time to arrange a mar- riage belTveen Joseph and the duchess, and Pauline and her brother. It may readily be imagined that, though these proposals were all declined, they left no unfavourable impres- sion on the duchess's mind; and this, coupled with her subsequent marriage to Junot, and his rapid advancement by the emperor, has filled her mind with an admiration of his cha- racter almost approaching to idolatry. She sees every thing, in consequence, in the con- sular and imperial government, in the most favourable colours. Napoleon is worshipped with all a woman's fervour, and the days of triumph for the Grand Army looked back to as a dream of glory, which has rendered all the remainder of life worthless and insipid. The Memoirs of Marshal Ney appear under different auspices from any others which have yet appeared regarding this eventful era. They do not profess to have been written by him- self; and, indeed, the warlike habits, and sudden and tragic death of the marshal, pre- clude the possibility of their being ushered forth to the world under that character. But, en the other hand, they are unquestionably f -ablished by hi? family, from the documents and papers in their possession ; and the aneo dotes wuh which they are interspersed havt plainly been collected with great pains from all the early friends of that illustrious warrior. If they are not published, therefore, under the sanction of personal, they are under that of family responsibility, and may be regarded, as we would say in England, as " the Ney Pa- pers," connected together by an interesting biography of the character to whom they refer. In such a production, historical impartiality cannot be reasonably expected. To those cf his family who still mourn the tragic end of the bravest of French heroes, his character must still be the object of veneration. Fail- ings which would have been acknowledged, defects which would have been pointed out, if he had descended to an honoured tomb, are forgotten in his melancholy fate; and his family, with hearts ulcerated at the supposed injustice and perhaps real illegality of his condemnation, are rather disposed to magnify his character into that of a martyr, than ac- knowledge its alliance with any of the weak- nesses or faults of mortality. In such feel- ings, there is not only every thing that is natural, but much that is commendable ; and the impartial foreigner, in reviewing the his- tory of his achievements, will not forget the painful sense of duty under which the British government acted at the close of his career, or the mournful feelings with which the axe of justice was permitted to descend on one of the bravest of the human race, under the feel- ing — whether right or not it is the province of history to inquire — of imperious state necessity. Marshal Ney was born at Sarrelouis, on the 10th January, 1769; consequently, he was twenty years old when the Revolution first broke out. His father was an old soldier, who had served M'ith distinction at the battle of Rosbach ; but after his discharge, he conti- nued the profession of a cooper, to -which he had been early educated. At school, his son, the young Ney, evinced the turbulent vigour of his disposition, and the future general was incessantly occupied in drilling and directing his comrades. Napoleon gave tokens of the same disposition at an equally early period : there is no turn of mind which so early evinces itself as a taste for military achieve- ments. He was at first destined for a notar}''s office ; but in spite of the earnest entreaties of his parents, he resolved to change his profes- sion. At the age of fifteen, our author gives the following interesting account of the cir- cumstances which led to his embracing the profession of arms. " So early as when he was fifteen, Ney had a presentiment of his future destiny. His father, incapable alike of estimating ins pow- ers, or sharing his hopes, in vain endeavourrd to restrain him. The mines of Asscnunler at that period were in full activity; he sent hi? son there, to endeavour to give a new direc- tion to his thoughts. It had quite an opposite effect. His imagination soon resumed its wonted courses. He dreamed only ..I fields of battle, combats and glory. The counsel* M ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. of his fnihpr. the tears of his mother, were alike inrireriunl : they lacerated without mov- ing his heart. 'J'wo years passed away in this manner; but his taste for arms became every day more decided. The places where he dwelt, contributed to strengthen the natural bent of his penius. Almost all the towns on the Rhine are fortified; wherever he went, he saw garrisons, unilbrms, and artilji-ry. Ncy could withstand it no lonijer; he rosiirned liis humble functions, and set out for Metz, where a re;jiment of hussars was stationed, with the intention of enlistinp. The prief which he well knew that sudden determination would cause to his mother, the chai^rin which it would occasion to his father, agitated his mind ; he hesitated Ion? what to do, but at length filial piety prevailed over fear, and he returned to Sarrclouis to embrace his parents, and bid them adieu. "The interview was painful, his reception stormy ; reproaches, tears, prayers, menaces, alternately tore his heart. At length he tore himself from their arms, and flying in haste, without either baggage, linen, or nioney, he regained the route of Metz, from which he had turned. He walked on foot; his feet were soon blistered, his shoes were stained with blood. Sad, harassed, and worn out with fatisrue, he nevertheless continued his march without llinching; and in his very first debut, gave proof of that invincible determi- nation which no subsequent obstacles were able to overcome. " At an afier period, when fortune had smiled on his path, he returned to Sarrelouis. The artillery sounded; the troops were under arms; all the citizens crowded to see their compatriot of whom they were so proud. Ke- cognising then the road which thirteen years before he had traversed on foot, the marshal recounted with emotion his first fatigues to the officers who surrounded him." — I. .5, 6. It has frequently been observed, that those who rise from humble beginnings are ashamed in subsequent life of their commencement, and degrade themselves by a puerile endea- vour to trace their origin to a family of dis- tinction. Ney, equally with Napoleon, was above that meanness. "Never in subsequent life did the marshal forget the point from which he had started. After he had arrived at the highest point of his fortune, he took a pleasure in recurring to his humble origin. When some ])ersons were dcf laiming in his presence on their connection With the noblesse, and what they had obtained from their rich families:— ♦You were more fortunate than I,' said he, interrupting them ; • I received nothintr from mv family, and deemed myself rich when, at Metz, I had two pieces of bread on the board.' "After he was named a marshal of the em- pire, he held a splendid levee: every one offered his congratulations, and hastened to prf'-ent his compliments. He interrupted the .I'll.itnrj' strain lr\- addressing himself to an old "Hicer who kept at a distance. 'Do you rerolbrt. captain, the time when you said to n\r, (,n occasion of my presenting my report, Weil done, Ney ; I am well pleased with you ; go on as you have begun, you will make )'our fortune.' * Perfectly, marshal,' replieC his old coininandcr; 'I had the honour to command a man iiiliiiitcly my superior. Such good for- tune is not easily forgotten.' " The satisfaction which he experienced al recurring to his origin, arose not merely from the noble pride of having been the sole archi- tect of his fortune, but also from the warm aflection which he ever felt for his familj'. He loved nothing so much as to recount the tenderness which he had experienced from his mother, and the good counsels which he had received from his father. Thus, when he was abandoning himself to all the dangers arising from an impetuous courage, he carefully con- cealed his perils from his parents and rela- tions, to save them from useless anxiety. On one occasion, he commanded the advanced guard of General Colaud, and was engaged in a serious action. Overwhelmed with fatigue, he returned and recounted to his comrades the events of the day. One of his friends blamed him for his imprudence. 'It is very true,' replied Ney, ' I have had singular good for- tune to-day; four different times I found m)'- self alone in the midst of the Austrians. Nothing but the most extraordinary good for- tune extricated me out of their hands.' 'You have been more fortunate than your brother.' ' What,' replied Ney, impetuously, and fixing his eyes anxiously on his friend, 'is my bro ther dead 1 Ah ! m)' poor mother !' At length he learned the mournful news, that in a serious affair in Italy, Pierre Ney, his eldei brother, had been killed. He burst into tears, and exclaimed, ' What would have become of my mother and sister, if I too had fallen ! Write to them, I pray you ; but conceal the dangers to which I am exposed, that they may not fear also for my life.' The father of the marshal died a few )'ears ago, at the age of nearly a hundred years. He loved his son with tenderness mingled with respect, and al- though of a singularly robust habit of body, his family feared the effect of the shock which the sad events of 1815 might produce upon him. He was never informed of them: the mourning of his daughter, with whom he lived, and of his grandchildren, onh' made him aware that some dreadful calamity had befallen the family. He ventured to ask no questions, and ever since, sad and melancholy, pronouncing but rarely the name of his son, he lingered on till 182(5, when he died Avithout having learned his tragic fate." — I. 9, 10. The great characteristic of Marshal Ncy was his impetuous courage, which gained for him, even among the giants of the era of Na- poleon, the surname of the Bravest of the Brave. This remarkable characteristic is thus described in these Memoirs : — "It is well known with what power and energy he could rouse the masses of the sol diers, and precipitate them upon the enemy. Vehement and impetuous when heading a charge, he was gifted with the most imper- turbal)le sang froid when it became necessary to sustain its movements. Dazzled by the lustre of that brilliant valour, many persons have imagined that it was the onl/ illustrious MARSHAL NEY. quality which the marshal possessed; but '.hose who were nearer his person, and better acquainted with his character, will concede to him greater qualities than the enthusiasm which captivates and subjugates the soldier. Calm in the midst of a storm of grape-shot — imperturbable amid a shower of balls and shells, Ney seemed to be ignorant of danger; to have nothing to fear from death. This rashness, which twenty years of perils have not diminished, gave to his mind the liberty, the promptitude of judgment and execution, so necessary in the midst of the complicated movements of war. This quality astonished those who surrounded him, more even than the courage in action which is more or less felt by all who are habituated to the dangers of war. One of his officers, whose courage had repeatedly been put to the proof, asked him one day if he had never felt fear. Re- gaining instantly that profound indifference for danger, that forgetfulness of death, that elasticity of mind, which distinguished him on the field of battle, ' I have never had time,' replied the marshal with simplicity. "Nevertheless, this extraordinary coolness Ln danger did not prevent his perceiving those slight shades of weakness, from which it is so rarely that a soldier is to be found entirely exempted. On one occasion, an officer was giving an account of a mission on which he had been sent: while he spoke, a bullet passed so near him that he involuntarily lowered his head, but nevertheless continued his narrative without exhibiting emotion — ' You have done extremely well,' said the marshal, ' but next time do not bow quite so low.' " The marshal loved courage, and took the greatest pleasure in producing it in others. If he had witnessed it in a great degree in any one on the field of battle ; if he had discovered vigour, capacity, or military genius, he never rested till he had obtained their promotion ; and the army resounded for long with the eflx)rts which he made for this purpose." — I. 21. But it was not mere valour or capacity on the field of battle, which distinguished Ney; ha was attentive also to the minutest wants of his soldiers, and indefatigable in his endea- vours to procure for them those accommoda- tions, of which, from having risen from the humblest rank himself, he so well knew how to appreciate the value. Of his efforts in this respect we have the following interesting ac- count : — "Quick in repressing excesses, the marshal omitted nothing to prevent them. A private soldier in early life, he had himself f^elt the suflTerings endured by the private soldier, and when elevated to a higher station he did his itmost to assuage them in others. He knew that the soldier, naturally just and grateful to those who watched over his interests, was difficult to manage when his complaints were neglected, and it was evident that his superiors had no sympathy for his fatigues or his priva- tions. N^,y was sincerely attached to those great masses, which, though composed of men of L >ch different characters, were equally ready every day to meet dangers and death in ♦he discharge of duty. At that period our troops, worn out with the fatigues of war, ac- customed to make light of dangers, were much ruder m their manners, and haughty in their ideas, than those of these times, who lead a pacific life in great cities and garrisons. The marshal was incessant in his endeavours to discover and correct the abuses which affected them. He ever endeavoured to prevent their wishes, and to convince the officers who com- manded them, that by elevating the soldier in his own eyes, and treating him with the respect which he deserves, but without any diminution of the necessary firmness, it was alone possible to obtain that forgetfulness of himself, thai abandonment of military discipline, which constitutes so large a portion of military force. "Avoiding, therefore, in the most careful way, the imposition of unnecessary burdens upon the soldiers, he was equally careful to abstain from that vain ostentation of author- ity, that useless prodigality of escort, Avhich generals of inferior calibre are so fond of dis- playing. His constant object was to .spare the troops engaged in that fatiguing service, and not to diminish, but from absolute necessity, by such detachments, the numerical strength of the regiments under his orders. That soli- citude did not escape the soldiers; and among their many subjects of gratitude, they ranked in Ihe foremost place the continual care and perseverance with which their general secured for them the means of subsistence. The pro digies he effected in that particular -will be found fully detailed in the campaign of Portu- gal, where he succeeded, in a country repeat- edly devastated, in providing, by incredible exertions, not only provisions for his own corps, but the whole army, during the six months that it remained in Portugal. Con stantly in motion on the Mondego, inces- santly pushing columns in every direction, he contrived to procure bread, clothes, provi- sions, in fine, every thing which was required. The recollection of these things remained engraven on the minds of his soldiers, and when his division with Massena caused him to resign the command of his corps, the grief of the soldiers, the murmurs, the first symp- toms of an insurrection ready to break forth, and which a single word from their chief would have blown into aflame, were sufficient to prove that his cares had not been thrown away on ungrateful hearts, and that his multi- plied attentions had won all their afioclioiis. "But his careful attention to his soldiers did not prevent him from maintaining the most rigorous discipline, and punishing severely any considerable excess on the part of the troops under his command. An instance of this occurred in the country of Darmstadt. The Austrians had been defeated, and retired near to Swigemberg, where they M'cre hroketi anew. The action was warmly conlesled, and our soldiers, irritated by so much resistance. broke open several houses and plundcn-d iliem. The circumstances in which itocciirivd might excuse the transgression, but Ney i*^^''"'^:'' '" make a signal example of reparation. v\h>le he proceeded with the utmost sevcniy nga "Mil the offenders, he published a i.roclamntn.n in which he directed that the damage .should •«> ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. > ; and in order that it should not be II elusory sum, he chartjod ilio Land- jCravf liunsclf \vitl» the vahiatiun. " When Governor of CJallicia and Salamanca, these provinces, notwithstanding their haired at the yoke of the stranger, cheerfully acknow- ledged the justice of his administration. One only ohject of spoil has been left by the mar- shal to his family, a relic of St. James of Cuin- posiella, which ihe monks of the convent of Su Jago presented to him, in gratitude for the humanity with which he treated them. He did not limit his care to the protection of property from pillage ; he kilew that there are yet dearer interests to which honour is more nearly allied, and he never ceased to cause them to be respected. The English army will bear testimony to his solicitude in that parti- cular. Obliged, after the battle of Corunna, to riiiliark in haste, they were unable to place on I'l'.inl the women by whom they were followed, and in consequence, fifty were left on the shore, where they were wandering about without pro- tection, exposed to the insults of the soldiers. No sooner was Ney informed of their situa- tion, than he hastened to come to their suc- cour; he assembled them, assured them of his protection, and directed that they should be placed in a female convent. But the Superior refused to admit them ; she positively refused lo have any thing to do with htretics ; no en- treaties could persuade her to extend to these unfortunates the rites of hospitality. "'Be it so,' replied the marshal; 'I under- stand your scruples ; and, therefore, instead of these Protestants, you shall furnish lodgings to two companies of Catholic grenadiers.' Ne- cessity, at length, bent the hard-hearted Abbess ; and these unhappy women, for the most pan the wives or daughters of oflicers or non-com- missioned officers, whose braver}"^ we had ex- perienced in the field, were received into the convent, where they were protected from every species of injury." — L 39 — 41. • We have no doubt of the truth of this last anecdote, and we may add that Ney not only respected the remains of Sir John Moore, interred in the ramparts of Corunna, but erected a monument to his memory. It is soothing to see the Freemasonry of generous feelin'^ which subsists between the really brave and elevated, under all the varieties of national rivalry or animosit}', in every part of the world. It is a pleasing task to record traits of gene- rosity in an enemy; but war is not composed f-niirely of such actions; and, as a specimen of the mode in which the Republican troops, in the first years of their triumphs, oppressed the people whom they professed to deliver, we Mil'join the following account of the mode in wliKh they levied their requisitions, taken from ihe report of one of the Envoys of Go- vernment lo the Convention. "Cologne, 8ih October, 1794. "The agents sent to make r.quisitions, my ^car cnjl. -agues, act in such a manner as to revolt all the world. The moment they arrive in a town, they lay a rerjuisition on every thing ; htrrally rvrry llihif;. No one thereafter can either buy or sell. Thus we see com- merce paralyzed, and for how longi For aj indefinite lime ; for there are many requisi tions which have been laid on a month ago, and on which nothing has yet been demanded; and during that whole period the inhabitants were unable to purchase any articles even of tht first necessity. If such measures are not cal-> culated to produce a counter-revciutionary reaction ; if they are not likely to roui;e against us the indignation o^ all mankind, I ask you what are 1 " Safety and fraternity. — Gellit." I. 53. Contrast this conduct on the part of the Friends of the People, as detailed by one of their own representatives to his democratic rulers, with the conduct of the Duke of Wel- lington, paying high prices for every article required by the English army in the south of France, and we have the best proof of the dif- ference between the actions of a Conservative and Kevolutionary Government. The life of a soldier who spent twenty years in camps, of course furnishes abundant ma- terials for the description of military adventure. We select, almost at random, the following de- scription of the passage of the Rhine, opposite Ehrenbreitzin, by the corps of Kleber, in 179 &. " The fort of Ehrenbreitzin commanded the mouth of Moselle ; the batteries of the righi bank swept all the shores of the Rhine. The enemy were quite aware of our design; the moon . shone bright ; and his soldiers, with anxious ej-cs and listening ears, waited the moment when our boats might come within reach of his cannon. The danger was great ; but that of hesitation was still greater ; we abandoned ourselves to our fate, and pushed across towards Neuwied. Instantly the forts and the batteries thundered with unexampled violence ; a shower of grape-shot fell in our boats. But there is something in great danger which elevates the mind. Our pontonniers made a sport of death, as of the batteries which were successively unmasked, and join- ing their efforts to the current which swept them along, at length reached the dikes on the opposite shore. Neuwied also opened its fire. That delicious town, embellished by all the arts of peace, now transfonned into a Avarlike stronghold, overwhelmed us by the fire of its batteries. We replied with vigour, but for long felt a repugnance to direct our fire against that charming city. At length, however, necessity compelled us to make the attack, and in a few hours Neuwied was re- , duced to ashes. I "The difficulties of the enterprise neverthe- less remained. It was necessary to overcome a series of redoubts, covered by chevaux-de- frize, palisades, and covered ways. We liad at once to carry Dusseldorf and beat the Count d'Hirbauch, who awaited our approach at the head of 20,000 men. Kleber alone did not des- pair; the batteries on the left shore were ready, and the troops impatiently awaited the signal to land. The dispositions were soon made. Lcfebvre attacked the lef\, Championnet the centre, Grenier the right. Such leaders could not but inspire confidence in the men. Soldiers and officers leapt ashore. We braved the storm of grape-shot; and on the 5fh September . MARSHAL NEY. 89 break of day, we were established on the Ger- man bank of the river." — I. 99-^101. These Memoirs abound with passages of this description ; and if implicit faith is to be given to them, it appears certain that Ney from the very first was distinguished by a degree of personal gallantry, as well as military con- duct, which has been rarely paralleled, and never exceeded. The description of his ele- vation to the rank of General Brigade, and the action which preceded it, is singularly de- scriptive of the character of the French armies at that period. " Meanwhile Mortier made himself master of Ebermanstadt, Collaud advanced upon For- chiers. His orders were to drive back every opponent whom he found in the plain, and disperse every force which attempted to cover the place. The task was difficult ; the avenues leading to it, the heights around it, were equally guarded ; and Wartensleben, in the midst of his soldiers, was exhorting them not to per- mit their impregnable position to be carried. It presented, in truth, every obstacle that could well be imagined; they were abrupt, covered with woods, surrounded by deep ravines. To these obstacles of nature were joined all the resources of art; on this height were placed masses of soldiers, that was crowned with ar- tillery; infantry was stationed at the summit of the defiles, cavalry at their mouths; on every side the resistance promised to br? of the most formidable description. Ney, however, was not to be deterred by such obstacles ; he advanced at the head of a handful of heroes, and opened his fire. He had only two pieces of artillery ; the enemy speedily unmasked fourteen. His troop was for a moment shaken by the violence of the fire ; but it was ac- customed to all the chances of war. It speedily re-formed, continued the attack, and succeeded, after an obstinate struggle, in throwing the ene- my's ranks into disorder. Some reinforcements soon afterwards arrived ; the melee grew warmer; and at Jength the Austrians, over- whelmed and broken, evacuated the position, which they found themselves unable to defend. "Kleber, charmed with that brilliant achieve- ment, testified the warmest satisfaction with it to the young ofiicer. He addressed to him, at the liead of his troop, the most flattering ex- pressions upon his activity, skill, and courage, and concluded with these words, 'I will no longer hurt your modesty by continuing my praises! My line is taken; you are a Gene- ral of Brigade.' The chasseurs clapped their hands, and the officers loudly testified their satisfaction. Ney alone remained pensive ; he even seemed to hesitate whether he should ac- cept the rank, and did not utter a single word. 'Well,' continued Kleber, in the kindest man- ner, 'you seem very confused; but the Aus- trians are those who will speedily make you forget your ennui ; as for me, I will forthwith report your promotion to the Directory.' He di«l so in eflect, and it was confirmed by return of post."— I. 186. It is still a question undecided, whether Na- poleon intended seriously to invade England, or whether his great preparations in the Chan- nel were a feint merely to give employment to his troops, and cover other designs. Bour- rienne maintains that he never in reality in- tended to attempt the descent; and that, un known to every one, he was organizing his expedition into the heart of Germany at the time when all around him imagined that he was studying only the banks of the Thames. Napoleon himself affirms the conlrarr. He asserts that he was quite serious in his inton- tion of invading England; that he was fully aware of the risks with which the attempt would have been attended, but was willing to have braved them for so great an object; and that the defeat of the combined squadron by Sir Robert Calder, frustrated the best combined plan he had ever laid during his whole career. His plan, as detailed in the instructions given to Villeneuve, printed in the appendix to his Memoirs, was to have sent the combined fleet to the West Indies, in order to draw after it Loixl Nelson's squadron ; and to have immedi- ately brought it back, raised the blockade of Ferrol and Corunna, and proceeded with tho combined fleet to join the squadrons of Rochelle and Brest, where twenty sail of the line were ready for sea, and brought the combined squad- ron into the Channel to cover the embarkation of the army. In this way, by a sudden con- centration of all his naval force, he calcixlated upon having seventy sail of the line in the Channel; a much greater force than, in the ab- sence of Lord Nelson, the British could have at once assembled to meet him. When Ave recollect that Lord Nelson fell into the snare, and actually pursued the combined fleets to the West Indies ; that in pursuance of Na- poleon's design, Villeneuve reached Ferro), and that it was in consequence only of his un- successful action with Sir Robert Calder. that he was induced to fall back to Cadiz, and there- by cause the whole plan to miscarry; it is evident that the fate of Britain then hung upon a thread, and that if the English admiral had been defeated, and the combined fleet had pro- ceeded up the Channel, the invasion might have been effected, and the fate of the civilized world been changed. It is a singular proof of the sagacity of Lord Collingwood, that at the very time when this well-combined plan was in progress on Napoleon's side, he divined the enemy's intentions, and in a memorial address- ed to "the Admiralty, and published in his Me- moirs, pointed outthe danger arising from the precise plan which his great antagonist was adopting; and it is a still more singular in- stance of the injustice and precipitance of public opinion, that tho British government were compelled to bring the admiral to a court-martial, and dismiss him from the ser- vice, because, with fifteen ships of the line, he had maintained a 2;lorious combat with t\venly- sevcn, captured two of their line, and d.-foaled the greatest and best combined project ever formed by the Emperor Napoleon. As every thing relating to this critical pe- riod of the war is of the very highest inlcirst in Great Britain, wc shall translate the pns sages of Ney's Memoirs, which throw ItRht upon the vast preparations th.-n made on the other side of the Channel. , r i „j "Meanwhile time passed on, and Engl.tnd. 00 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. a liiil neve I rod from its consternation, Init lif hmI place of attack, always Us '.•ovcrnnuMit. Four thousand f^un- boats ciivcnd the coast; the construclion of praams and rafis wont on without intermission ; ever)- thinp announced that the invasion was to W #'frhal Ney had nothing to do but follow out literally his instructions; they were so luminous and precise as to provide for every contingency. He distributed the powder, the tools, the projectiles, which were to accompany his corps on board the transports provided for that purpose. He divided that portion of the flotilla assigned to him into subdivisions; every regiment, every battalion, every com- pany, received the praams destined for their use; every one, down to the very last man, was ready In oinbark at thp first signal. He did murr ; rapidity of movement requires com- Ifincd exertions, and he resolved to habituate the tHKips to embarkation. The divisions were successively brought down to the quay, and embarked in the finest order; hut it was possi- ble that wlien assembled hurriedly together, they nii'.;ht be less calm and orderly. The Marshal resolved lo put it to the proof. "Infantry, cavair)', artillery, were at once put under arms, and ranged opposite to the resscis on which they were to embark. The whole were formed in platoons for embarka- tion, at small distances from each other. A, cannon was discharged, the field-officers an stafl-oflicers immediately dismounted, and placed themselves each at the head of the troop he was destined to command. The drum.\ had ceased to beat; the soldiers had unfixed their bayonets; a second discharge louder than the first was heard; the generals of divisions pass the order to the colonels. 'Make ready to embark.' Instantly a calm succeeds to the tumult; everyone listens attentively, eagerly watching for the next order, on which so much depended. A third cannon is heard, and the command 'Colonels, forward,' is heard with indescribable anxiety along the line. In fine a last discharge resounds, and is instantly fol- lowed by the order, ' March !' — Universal ac- clamations instantly broke forth; the soldiers hurried on board ; in ten minutes and a half twenty-five thousand men were embarked. The soldiers never entertained a doubt tha' they were about to set sail. They arranges themselves, and each took quarters for him- self; when the cannon again sounded, the drums beat to arms, they formed ready for action on the decks. A last gun is discharged ; every one believed it was the signal to Aveigh anchor, and shouts of Vive V Empcreur rent the air, but it was the signal for debarkation, which was efl"ected silently and with deep re- gret. It was completed, however, as rapidly as the* embarkation, and in thirteen minutes from the time when the soldiers Avere on board, they were arranged in battle array on the shore. " Meanwhile the English had completely fallen into the snare. The f.eet which cruised before Rochfort had no sooner seen Admiral Missiessy running down before the Mind, than it set sail in pursuit. Villeneuve, who started from Toulon in the middle of a violent tem- pest, was obliged to return to the harbour; but such was Nelson's anxiety to meet him, that he set sail first for Egypt, then for the West In- dies. The Mediterranean was speedily cleared of English vessels; their fleets Avandered through the Atlantic, without knowing where to find the enemy; the moment to strike a decisive stroke had arrived. "The unlooked for return of Missiessy frus- trated all these calculations. He had sailed like an arrow to Martinique, and returned still more rapidly: but the English now retained at home the squadrons which they had original- ly intended to have sent for the defence of Jamaica. Our situation in consequence was less favourable than we had expected ; but, nevertheless, there was nothing to excite un- easiness. We had fifteen ships of the line at Ferrol, six at Cadiz, five at Rochfort, twenty- one at Brest. Villeneuve was destined to rally them, join them to the twenty which he had under his orders, and advancing at the head of an overwhelming force, make himself mas- ter of the Channel. He left 'J'oulon on the 30ih March, and on the 23d June he was at the Azores, on his return to Europe, leaving Nelson still in the West Indies. But at the very mo- ment when every one flattered himself that our vessels would speedily arrive to protect the embarkation of the armj', we learnt that,. J MARSHAL NEY. 91 leterred by a cannonade of a few hours, and the loss of two ships, (Sir R. Calder's battle,) he had taken refuge in Ferrol. A mournful feeling took possession of our minds ; every- one complained that a man should be so im- measurably beneath his destiny. " All hope, however, was not lost; the em- peror still retained it. He continued his dis- positions, and incessantly urged the advance of the marine. Every one flattered himself that Villeneuve, penetrated with the greatness of his mission, would at length put to sea, join Gautheame, disperse the fleet of Cornwallis, and at length make his appearance in the Channel. But an unhappy fatality drew him on. He only left Ferrol to throw himself into Cadiz. It was no longer possible to count on the support of his squadron. The emperor in vain attempted other expedients, and made repeated attempts to embark. Nothing could succeed for want of the covering squadron ; and soon the Battle of Trafalgar and the Austrian war postponed the conquest of Eng- land to another age." — II. 259—262. This passage, as well as all the others in Napoleon's Memoirs, which are of a similar import, are calulated, in our opinion, to excite the most singular feelings. They demonstrate, beyond a doubt, of what incalculable import- ance Sir Robert Calder's action was ; and that, more than even the triumph of Trafalgar, it fixed the destinies of Britain. The great victory of Nelson did not occur till the 21st October, and months before that the armies of Napo- leon had been transported from the shores of Boulogne to the heart of Germany, and were irrevocably engaged in a contest with Austria and Russia. It was Sir Robert Calder's action which broke the course of Napoteon's designs, and chained his armies to the shore, at the very time when they were ready to have passed over, with a second Cssar, to the shores of Britain. It is melancholy to think of the fate of the gallant officer, under the dictation of that impartial judge, the popular voice, whose skill and bravery achieved these great results. It is a curious speculation, now that the event is over, what would have been the fate of England, if Napoleon, with one hundred and fifty thousand men, had, in consequence of the success of these combinations, landed on the shores of Sussex. We are now com- pelled, with shame and sorrow, to doubt the doctrine which, till the lasJ. three years, we held on this subject. We fear, there ^s a great probability that he would have achieved the overthrow of the British empire. Not that the mere force of Napoleon's army, great as it was, could have in the end subjugated the de- scendants of the conquerors of Cressy and Azicour. The examples of Vimiera, Maida, Alexandria, Corunna, and Waterloo, where English troops, who had never seen a shot fired in anger, at once defeated the veterans of France, even when commanded by the ablest officers, is sufficient to prove the reverse. England was invincible, if she remained faith- ful to herself. But would she have remained faithful to herselfl That is the question. The events of the last three years have awakened us to the mournful fear, that she would nt t- II is now proved, by sad experience, that we possess within ourselves a numerous, power- ful, and energetic faction, insatiable in am- bition, unextinguishable in resources, deaf to every call of patriotism, dead to every feeling of hereditary glory. To them national triuncph is an object of regret, because it was achieved under the banners of their opponents ; national humiliation an object of indifl"erencc, provided they are elevated by it to the reins of power. With burning hearts and longing eyes they watched the career of the French Revolution, ever eulogizing its principles, palliating its excesses, vituperating its adversaries. Mr. Fox pronounced in Parliament the Constitu- tion framed by the Constituent Assembly, to be "the most astonishing fabric of v.-isdoco and virtue which patriotism had reared in any age or country, on the ruins of ignorance and superstition." And when this astonishing fabric produced Danton and Robespierre, and hatched the Reign of Terror, he showed no disposition to retract the opinion. Two hun- dred and fifty thousand Irishmen, we are told by Wolfe Tone, were united, drilled, regimented and organized, to effect the separation of Ire- land from Great Britain ; and if we may be- lieve Mr. Moore, in his Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Mr. Fox was no stranger to their treasonable intentions at the very time when he earnestly supported their demand for Parlia- mentary Reform. During the last three years we have seen this party systematically undo every think which their predecessors had efll'ected during half a century- of unexampled glory; abandon, one by one, all the objects of our continental policy, the Dutch barrier, the protection of Portugal, the independence of Holland, the integrity of Turkey; unite the leopard and the tricolor in an inglorious crusade against the independence of the sur- rounding states ; beat down Holland by open force, and subvert Portugal by feigned neutrali- ty and real hostility; force the despots of Northern Europe into a dangerous defensive combination, and unite the arms of constitu tional freedom with those of democratic am bition in the South; and, to gain a deceitful popularity for a few years, sacrifice the Con- stitution, which had for two hundred years conferred unexampled prosperity on their country. The men who have done these things, could not have been relied on when assailed by the insidious arts and deceitful promises of Napoleon. Napoleon has told us, in his Memoirs, how he proposed to have subjugated England.^ He would have overcome it, as he overcame bw'it- zerland, Venice, and all the states wincii ilid not meet him with uncompromising hostility He would instantly, on landing, have pub lished a proclamation, in which lie dociared that he came to deliver the English from the oligarchy under which they had gro:i"c. for three centuries; and for this end he w..uld have promised annual parliaments universal suffrage, vote by ballot, the confiscation of .he Churdi property, the abol.tun, of '.e Corn Laws, and all the objects^of Whtg or R.J.ral ambit on. Bv these offers he would have 98 ALISOK'8 MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. ihrown ihr npple of clonuil discord and divi- sion into (MtMi Hnlaiii. The republican trans- ports Mlui'h broke out vith such vehemence on the announcement of the Hcform 13ill in 1831, would have been instantly heard on the landing of the tricolor-tlag on the throne of En^'land: and the divisions now so irrecover- ably e.Niablished amongsi us, would have at once ari.-on in presence of a gigantic and en- terprising enemy. There can be little doubt, wc fear, what a considerable portion of the Movement party in England, and the whole of it in Ireland, would have done. They would, heart and hand, have joined the enemy of their country. Conceiving that they were doing: what was best for its inhabitants — they would have established a republic in close alliance with France, and directed the whole resources of England to support the cause of democracy all over the world. Meanwhile, Napoleon, little solicitous about their political dogmas, would have steadily fixed his iron grasp on die great warlike establishments of the coun- try; Portsmouth, Plymouth, Woolwich, Chat- bam, Shcerness, Deptford, and Carron, would have fallen into his hands ; the army would have been exiled or disbanded; and if his new democratical allies proved at all trouble- some in the House of Commons, he would have dispersed them with as little ceremony, by a file of grenadiers, as he did the Council of Five Hundred in the Orangery of St. Cloud. It is with pain and humiliation that we make this confession. Five years ago we should have held any man a foul libeller on the English character who should have de- clared such conduct as probable in any part of the English opposition ; and we should have relied with as much confidence on the whole liberal party to resist the aggressions of France, as we should on the warmest ad- herents of government. It is their own conduct, since they came into power, which has unde- ceived us, and opened our eyes to the immen- sity of the danger to which the country was exposed, when her firm patriots at the helm nailed her colors to the mast. But regarding, as we do, with perfect sincerity, the Reform Bill as ihi parent of a much greater change in our national institutions than a conquest by France would have been, and the passing of that measure as a far more perilous, because more irremediable leap in the dark, than if we had thrown ourselves into the arms of Napoleon, wc cannot but consider the subse- quent events as singularly illustrative of the orior dangers, and regard the expulsion of the Whigs from the ministry by the firmness of George IIL. in 1807, as a delivery from greater danger than the country had known since the 8axon arms were overthrown by William on the field of Hastings. One of the most brilliant acts of Napoleon was his astonishing march from Boulogne to Swabia, in ISO."), and the admirable skill with which he accumulated his forces, converging from so many diflerent points round the un- fortunate Mack, who lay bewildered at Ulm. In this able undertaking, as well as in the combat at Elchingen, which contributed in so P'sential a manner to its success, and from which his title of duke was taken, Ney bor« a conspicuous part. The previous situation of the contending powers is thus described by our author: "The troops which the emperor had undel his command did not exceed 180,000 men.— This was little enough for the strife which was about to commence, for the coalition did not now merely oppose to us the troops which they had in the first line. The allied sove- reigns already addressed themselves to the multitude, and loudly called on them to take up arms in defence of liberty, they turne(?. against us the principles which they professed their desire to destroy. They roused in Ger- many national antipathies: flattered in Italy the spirit of independence, scattered every where the seeds of insurrection. The masses of the people were slow to swallow the bait. They appreciated our institutions, and did not behold without distrust this sudden burst of enthusiasm in sovereigns in favour of the po« pular cause : but they readily took fire at the recital of the sacrifices which we had imposed on them, the promised advantages Avhich we had not permitted them to enjo}'. The Coali- tion prepared to attack us on all the vast line which we occupied. Russians, Swedes, Eng- lish, Hanoverians, hastened to take a part in the strife. The approach of such a mass oi enemies might have occasioned dangerous results ; a single reverse might have involved us in a strife with warlike and impatient na- tions; but the Austrians had imprudently spread themselves through Bavaria, at a time when the Russians had hardly as yel passed Poland. The emperor did not despair of an- ticipating the one and overwhelming the other and thus dissipating that formidable league of sovereigns before they Avere in a situation tc deploy their forces on the field of battle. The blow, according to these calculations, Avas to be struck in Swabia. But from that country to Boulogne, where our troops were stationed, the distance was nearly the same as to.Podo- lia, where the Russians had arrived. Her sought to steal a march upon them to conceal for some days the great mancpuvre which he meditated. For this purpose, Marmont, whose troops were on the coast, when he set out for Germany, received orders to give out that he was about to take merely other quarters ; and Bernadotte, who was stationed in Hanover, to encourage the opinion that he was about to spend the winter in that country. Meanwhile all had orders to hasten their march ; all ad- vanced with the same celerit}' ; and when our enemies still believed us 6n the shores of the Channel, we were far advanced towards the Rhine. The first and second corps had reached Mayence; the third was grouped around Manheim ; the fourth had halted in the environs of Spire; the fifth was estab- lished at Strasbourg, and the sixth, which hajt started from Montreuilon the 28th August, had reached Lauterbourg on the 24th September. In that short interval, it had traversed three hun- dred leagues, being at the rate of above ten leagues a-day. History has nothing to show comparable to such celerity."— IL 268— 270 : From a soldier of such ability and experi- i MARSHAL NEY. 93 ence much may be expected of value on the science of war. In the " Reflections" of the marshal, at the end of the second volume, the reader will find much interesting matter of that description. We select one example : — "The defensive system accords ill Avith the disposition of the French soldier, at least if it is not to be maintained by successive diver- sions and excursions ; — in a word, if you are not constantly occupied in that little warfare, inactivity destroys the force of troops who rest constantly on the defensive. They are obliged to be constantly on the alert, night and day ; while, on the other hand, offensive expeditions, wisely combined, raise the spirit of the soldier, and prevent him from having time to ponder on the real cause of his dan- gerous situation. "It is in the offensive that you find in the French soldier inexhaustible resources. His active disposition, and valour in assaults, double his power. A general should never hesitate to march with the bayonet against the enemy, if the ground is favourable for the use of that weapon. It is in the attack, in fine, that you accustom the French soldier to every species of warfare, — alike to brave the ene- my's fire, which is generally little hurtful, and to leave the field open to the develop- ment of his intelligence and courage. " One of the greatest difficulties in war is to accustom the soldier to the fatigues of marching. The other powers of Europe will attain with difficulty in this respect the degree of perfection which the French soldier pos- sesses. His sobriety and physical constitu- tion are the real causes of the marked superi- ority he has acquired over the Austrians in that particular. "Rapidity of march, or rather an able com- bination of marches, almost invariably deter- mine the fate of war. Colonels of infantry, therefore, should be indefatigable in their en- deavours to train their soldiers progressively to ordinary and forced marches. To attain that object, so essential in war, it is indispensable to oblige the soldier to carry his k-napsack on his back from the outset of the campaign, in order to accustom him to the fatigues which m the course of it he must undergo. The health of the soldier depends on this being habitual ; the men are economized by it ; the continual loss by partial and frequently useless combats is avoided, as well as the considerable expenses of hospitals to govern- ment."— II. 410, 411. We have room for no more extracts: those which have been already given wilJ convey a clear idea of the character of this work. It possesses the merits, and exhibits the defects, of all the memoirs by the leaders of the ambitious or war party in France, re- garding that period. Abounding in anecdote, lull of patriotic spirit and military adventure, it at the same time presents all the prejudices and errors of that party, — a profound and unreasonable hatred of this country — an im- passioned enthusiasm for the glory of France — a deliberate and apparently sincere belief, that whatever opposes its elevation is to be looked upon with instinctive and unconquer- able aversion. In this respect, the opinions of this party in France are utterly extravagant, and not a little amusing. They iT>ake no allowances for the differences of national feeling — yield nothing to national rivalry — never transport themselves into the breasts of their antagonists in the strife, or of the people they are oppressing, but take for granted, as a matter concerning which there can be no dis- pute, that whatever resists the glory of France is an enemy of the human race. There are many writers of intelligence and ability in whom we cannot pardon this weakness ; but, recollecting the tragic fate of Marshal Ney, and pitying the ulcerated hearts of his rela- tions, we find more excuse for it in his bio- grapher, and look forward with interest to the concluding volumes of this work, which will contain still more interesting matter— the Peninsular campaigns, the Russian retrea*, the rout of Waterloo. ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. IIOIJEKT BEUCE.* A Fropilome is a nolilc thine: ; Frci'ddiiK! iiiuki-H man to luive liking; KrpiMloiiic all Biilari; to nion i.'iv<;s ; Ho lives at ease thai freely lives. BAUBOun's Bruce. Thi discovery of the bones of RonEnr Brick, among the ruins of Diinfcrinline ab- bey, calls for some observations in a journal intended to record the most remarkable events, whether of a public or a domestic nature, which occur during the period to vhich it refers; and it will never, perhaps, be our good forlunc to direct the attention of our readers to an event more interesting to the antiquary or the patriot of Scotland, than the discovery and reinterment of the remains of her greatest hero. It is satisfactory, in the first place, to know that no doubt can exist about the remains which were discovered being really the bones of Robert Bruce. Historians had recorded that he was interred " dcbito cum honore in medio Ecclesiae de Dunfermline ;" but the ruiQ of the abbey at the time of the Reforma- tion, and the subsequent neglect of the monu- ments which it contained, had rendered it diflicult to ascertain where this central spot reall}- was. Attempts had been made to ex- plore among the ruins for the tomb ; but so entirely was the form of cathedral churches forgotten in this northern part of the island, that the researches were made in a totally ditTercnt place from the centre of the edifice. At length, in digging the foundations of the new church, the workmen came to a tomb, arched over with masonry, and bearing the marks of more than usual care in its construc- tion. Curiosity being attracted by this cir- cumstance, it was suspected that it might contain the remains of the illustrious hero; and persons of more skill having examined the spot discovered that it stood precisely in the centre of the church, as its form was indicated by the existing ruins. The tomb having been opened in the presence of the Barons of Exchequer, the discovery of the name of King Robert on an iron plate among the rubbish, and the cloth of gold in which the bones were shrouded, left no room to doubt that the long wished-ff)r grave had at last been discovered ; whil<- the appearance of the skeleton, in which the breast-bone was sawed asunder, afforded a^ still more interesting proof of its really being the remains of that illustrious hero, whose heart was committed to his faith- ful asstKMale in arms, and thrown by him, on a pilt,'riina'.;e to the Holy Land, amidst the ranks of the enemy, with the sublime expression, "Onwards, as thou wast wont, thou fearless heart." Such an event demands a temporary pause iTt the avocations and amusements of life. Wc feel called on to go back, in imagination, •ntnrkMood'R MnRnr.inp, Pit. isni. Written iii ^p lliiK' <.f ih'; ill«r<>viTy of tlin rtniuins of Uobcrt WUfc In the cliurch of Uunfcrinlinc. to the distant and barbarous pericd when thfl independence of our country was secured by a valour and ability that has never since been equalled; and in returning from his recent grave to take a nearer view of the difficulties which he had to encounter, and the beneficial eflects which his unshaken patriot- ism has confirmed upon its people. — Had we lived in the period when his heroic achieve- ments were fresh in the public recollection, and when the arms of England yet trembled at the name of Bannockburn, we M'ould have dwelt with enthusiasm on his glorious ex- ploits, A nation's gratitude should not relax, when the lapse of five subsequent centuries has not produced a rival to his patriotism and valour; and when this long period has served only to develope the blessings which they have conferred upon his country. Towards a due understanding, however, of the extraordinary merits of Robert Bruce, it is necessary to take a cursory view of the poAver with which he had to contend, and of the resources of that kingdom, which, at that critical juncture, providence committed to his arms. The power of England, against which it was his lot incessantly to struggle, Avas, per- haps, the most formidable which then existed iu Europe. The native valour of her people, distinguished even under the weakest reign, was then led on and animated by a numerous and valiant feudal nobility. That bold and romantic spirit of enterprise which led the Norman arms to the throne of England, and enabled Roger de Hauteville, with thirty fol- lowers, to win the crown of the two Sicilies, still animated the English nobles; and to this hereditary spirit Avas added the remembrance of the matchless glories Avhich their arms had acquired in the wars of Palestine. The barons, who Avere arrayed against Robert Bruce, were the descendants of those iroa Avarriors Avho combated for Christendom under the Avail of Acre, and defeated the Avhole Saracen strength in the battle of Ascalon ; the banners that were unfurled for the conquest of Scotland, Avere those AA-hich had Avaved victorious over the arms of Saladin ; and the sovereign Avho led them, bore the crown that had been AA'orn by Richard in the Holy Wars, and Avielded in his sword the terror of that mighty name, at which even the accumu- lated hosts of Asia Avere appalled. Nor Avere the resources formidable for maintaining and the Avar. The prosperity which had groAvn up Avith the equal laAA's of our Saxon ances* tors, and Avhich the tyranny of the early Nor- man kings had never completely extinguishedi had revived and spread under the Avise and of England less nourishing ROBERT BRUCE. 95 beneficent reigns of Henry II. and Edward I. The legislative wisdom of the last monarch had given to the English law greater improve- ments than it had ever received in any subse- quent reigns, while his heroic valour had subdued the rebellious spirit of his barons, and trained their united strength to submis- sion to the throne. The acquisition of Wales had removed the only weak point of his wide dominion, and added a cruel and savage race to the already lormidable mass of his armies. The navy of England already ruled the seas, and was prepared to carry ravage and desola- ticji over the wide and defenceless Scottish coast; while a hundred thousand men, armed in the magnificent array of feudal war, and led on by the ambition of a feudal nobility, poured into a country which seemed destined only to be their prey. But most of all, in the ranks of this army, were found the intrepid Yeomanry of Eng- land ; that peculiar and valuable body of men which has in every age contributed as much to the stability of the English character, as the celebrity of the English arms, and which then composed those terrible archers, whose prowess rendered them so formidable to all the armies of Europe. These men, whose valour was warmed by the consciousness of personal freedom, and whose strength was nursed among the enclosed fields and green pastures of English liberty, conferred, till the discovery of fire-arms rendered personal ac- quirements of no avail, a matchless advan- tage on the English armies. The troops of no other nation could produce a body of men in the least comparable to them either in strength, discipline, or individual valour; and such was the dreadful etficacy with which they used their weapons, that not only did they mainly contribute to the subsequent tri- umphs of Cressy and Azincour, but at Poitiers and Hamiklon Hill they alone gained the vic- tory, Avitli hardly any assistance from the feudal tenantrv. These troops were well known to the Scottish soldiers, and had established their superiority over them in many bloody battles, in M'hich the utmost efforts of undisciplined valour had been found unavailing against their practised discipline and superior equip- ment. The very names of the barons who headed them were associated with an un- broken career of conquest and renown, and can hardly be read }'et without a feeling of national exultation. Names that to fear were never known, Bold Norfolk's Earl de Brotherton, And Oxford's famed de Vera ; Ross, Montague, and Manly came, And Courtney's pride, and Percy's fame, Names known too well in Scotland's war At Falkirk, Metliven, and Dunbar, IJlazed broader yet in after years, At Cressy red, and fell Poitiers. Against this terrible force, before which, in the succeeding reign, the military power of France was compelled to bow, Bruce had to array the scanty troops of a barren land, and the divided forces of a turbulent nobility. Scotland was, in his time, fallen low indeed from that state of peace and prosperity in which she was found at the first invasion of Edward I., and on which so much liglit hai been thrown by the industrious research of our times.* the disputed succersion had sown the seeds of unextin^nishable jealousies among the nobles ; the gold of England had corrupted many to betray their country's cause; and the latal ravages of English inva- sion nad desolated the whole plains front which resources for carrying on the war could be drawn. All the heroic valour, the devoted patriotism, and the personal prowess of Wallace, had been unable to stem the torrent of English invasion; and, when he died, the whole nation seemed to sink under the load against which his unexampled forti- tude had long enabled it to struggle. These unhappy jealousies among the nobles, to which his downfall was owing, still continued, and almost rendered hopeless any attempt to combine their forces ; while the thinned popu- lation and ruined husbandry of the country seemed to prognosticate nothing but utter extirpation from a continuance of the war. Nor was the prospect less melancholy from a consideration of the combats which had taken place. The short spear and light shield of the Scotch had been found utterly unavailing against the iron panoply and poAverful horses of the English barons ; while the hardy and courageous mountaineers perished in vain under the dreadful tempest of the English archery. What then must have been the courage of that youthful prince, who after having been driven for shelter to an island on the north of Ireland, could venture, with only forty fol- lowers, to raise the standard of independence in the west of Scotland, against the accumu- lated force of this mighty power? — what the resource^ of that understanding, which, though intimately acquainted, from personal service, with the tried superiority of the English arms, could foresee, in his barren and exhaiwsted country, the means of combating them I — what the ability of that political conduct which could re-unite the jaring interests, and smother the deadly feuds, of the Scottish nobles 1 — and what the capacity of that noble warrior, wno, in the words of the contemporary historian.f could " unite the prowess of the first knight to the conduct of the greatest general of his age," and was able, in the space of six j^ears, to raise the Scottish arms from the lowest point of depression to such a pitch of glory, that even the redoubted archers and haughty chivalry of England fled at the sight of the Scottish banner 1 1 Nor was it only in the field that the great and patriotic conduct of Robert Bruce mms dis- played. In the endeavour to restore the almost ruined fortunes of his country, and to lical the wounds -vhich a war of unparalleled seventy had brought upon its people, he cxhibiu-d the same wise and beneficent policy. Under his auspicious rule, husbandry revived, arts were encouraged, and the turbulent barons were awed into subjection. Scotland recovered, during his adm inistration, i n a^greaU neasure , ♦ Chalmers's Caledonia, vol. i. t Wulsing. p. lOG. Mon. Malms, p f FroI'Mrt. 162, 163. 90 ALISOira MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. from the devastation that had precccded it ; and the peasants, for^ettin? the stem warrior in the l^enelirent monarch, lonp; remembered his sway, under the name of the "good King Rol>eri'v rci^Mi." But the ;:reatness of his character appeared most of all from the events that occurred after his death. When the capacity with wliich he and his worthy associates, Randolph and Dou<:l,is. had counterbalanced the superiority of tiic Hn^rlish arms, was withdrawn, tiic fiibric whioh tiu-y had supported fell to the ground. In the very first battle which was fought after his death, at Ilamildon Hill, a larger army than th.at which conquered at Bannockburn was overthrown by the archers of England, without a single knight couching his spear. Never, at any subsequent period, was Scotland able to withstand the more powerful arms of the English yeomanry. Thenceforward, her military history is little more than amcJancholy calalosue of continued defeats, occasioned rather by treachery on the part of her nobles, or incapacity in her generals, than any defect of valour in her soldiers ; and the independence of the monarchy was maintained rather b}' the (error which the name of Bruce and the re- membrance of Bannockburn had inspired, than by the achievements of any of the suc- cessors to his throne.* The merits of Roben Bruce, as a warrior, ire very generally acknowledged; and the eyes of Scottish patriotism turn with the greater :xultaticn to his triumphs, from the contrast which their splendour aflbrds to the barren •.nd humilip.ting annals of the subsequent reign?,. But the important coNSEauExcEs of nis victories are not sufficiently appreciated. While all admit the purity of the motives by vvhich he was actuated, there are many who lament the consequences cf his sucpess, and perceive in it the source of those continued hostilities between England and Scotland which have brought such incalculable calami- ties upon both countries, and from which the latter has only within half a century begun to recover. Better would it have been, it is said for the prosperitYof this countr}--, if, like Wales, she had passed at once under the dominion of the English government, and received, five centuries ago, the present of that liberty which she so entirely lost during her struffgles for national independence, and which nothing but her subsequent union with a free people has enabled her to obtain. There is something, we think, a priori, im- probable in this supposition, that, from the assertion of her independence under Robert Bruce, Scotland has received any injury. The instinct to maintain the national independence, and r' 'ession from foreign powers, is ?° "■'• i'nplanted among mankind, that it may well be doubted whether an obedience to its impulse is likely in any case to pro- duce injurious c/Tect-s, In fact, subjugation by a foreign power is itself, in general, a greater calamity than any benefits with which it is ftccnmpanied can ever compensate; because, in the very act of receiving ihcm by force, there • Ilanry'f Drilain, vol. vil. is implied an entire dereliction of all that lit valuable in political blessings, — a security that they will remain permanent. There is no ex- ample, perhaps, to be found in the history of mankind, of political freedom being either ellectually conferred bjr a sovereign in gift, or communicated by the force of foreign arms ; but as liberty is the greatest blessing which man can enjoy, so it seems to be the law of nature that it should be the reward of intre- pidity and energy alone; and that it is by the labour of his hands, and the sweat of his brow, that he is to earn his freedom as well as his subsistence. Least of all are such advantages to be an- ticipated from the conquest of a/;ce people. That the dominion of free states over con- quered countries is always more tyrannical than that of any other form of government, has been observed ever since the birth of liberty in the Grecian states, by all who have been so unfortunate as to be subjected to their rule. If we except the Roman republic, whose wise and beneficent policy is so entirely at variance with every thing else which we ob- serve in human aff"airs, that vre are almost dis- posed to impute it to a special interposition of divine providence, there is no free state in ancient or modern times, whose government towards the countries whom it subdued has not been of the most oppressive description. We are accustomed to speak of the maternal government of free governments, but towards their subject provinces, it is generally the cruel tyranny of the step-mother, who oppresses her acquired children to favour her own ofi"- spring. Nor is it difficult to perceive the reason why a popular government is naturally in- clined, in the general case, to severtty towards its dependencies. A single monarch looks to . the rn-cnttc alone of the countries whom he has subdued, and as it necessarily rises with the prosperity which they enjoj% Ins obvious interest is to pursue the measures best calcu- lated to secure it. But in republics, or in those free governments where the popular voice ex- ercises a decided control, the leading men of the state themselves look to the property of the subject country as the means of their in- dividual exaltation. Confiscations according- ly are multiplied, with a view to gratify the people or nobles of the victorious country with grants of the confiscated lands. Hatred and animosity are thus engendered between the ruling government and their subject provinces; and this, in its time, gives rise to new confiscations, by which the breach be- tween the higher and lower orders is rendered irreparable. Whoever is acquainted with the history of the dominion which the Athenian and Syracusan populace held over their subject cities; with the governmentof Genoa, Venice, and Florence, in modern times ; or with thej sanguinary rule which England exercised I over Ireland during the three centuries which] followed her subjugation, will know that this ^ statement is not overcharged. On principle, therefore, and judging by the I experience of past times, there is no room tOj doubt, that Bruce, in opposing the conquest of ROBERT BRUCE. Scotland by the English arms, doing what the real interest of his country required; and that how incalculable soever may be the blessin^-s which she has since received by a union, on equal terms, with her southern neighbour,' the result would have been very different had' she entered into that government on the footing of involuntary subjugation. In fact, it is not diffi- cult to perceive what would have been the policy which England would have pursued to- wards this country, had she prevailed in the contest for the Scottish throne ; and it is by following out the consequences of such an event, and tracing its probable influence on the condition of our population at this day, that we can alone appreciate the immense obli- gations we owe to our forefathers, who fought and died on the field of Bannockburn. Had the English then prevailed in the war with Robert Bruce, and finally succeeded in establishing their long wished-for dominion in this country, it cannot be doubted, that their first measure would have been to dispossess a large portion of the nobles who had so obsti- nately maintained the war against them, and substitute their own barons in their room. The pretended rebellion of Scotland against the legitimate authority of Edward, Avould have furnished a plausible pretext for such a pro- ceeding, while policy would of course have suggested it as the most efficacious means, both of restraining the turbulent and hostile spirit of the natives, and of gratifying the great barons by whose force they had been subdued. In fact, many such confiscations and grants of the lands to English nobles actually took place, during the time that Edward I. maintained his authority within the Scottish territory. The cons.equences of such a measure are very obvious. The dispossessed proprietors would have nourished the most violent and inveterate animosity against their oppressors ; and the tenantry on their estates, attached by feudal and clanish aflection to their ancient masters, would have joined in any scheme for their restoration. The seeds of continual dis- cord and hatred would thus have been sown between the lower orders and the existing proprietors of the soil. On the other hand, the grejft English barons, to whom the con- fiscated lands were assigned, would naturally prefer the society of their own country, and the security of their native castles, to the unpro- ductive soil and barbarous tribes on their northern estates. They would in consequence have relinquished these estates to factors or agents, and, without ever thinking of residing among a people by whom they were detested, have sought only to increase, by rigorous ex- actions, the revenue which they could derive from their labour. In progress of time, hoM^ever, thei natural fervour of the Scottish people, their hereditary ; animosities against England, the exertions of I the dispossessed proprietors, and the oppression I of the English authorities, would have occa- I sioned a revolt in Scotland. They would na- ; turall}^ have chosen for such an undertaking \ the moment when the English forces were en- I gaged in the wars of France, and when the I entire desertion of the nothern frontier pro- 97 mised successful rapine to their arms. In such circumstances, it is not to be doubted that they would have been unable to withstand the seeds F Jn.T ' '° ■'^' ^"-"^h arms, which the French emissaries would have sedulously spread through the countrj-. And if the at^- thority of England was again re-established, new and more extensive confiscations would of course have followed; the English nobles would have been gratified by grants of the most considerable estates on the north of the Tweed and the bonds of military subjection would have been tightened on the unfortunate people who Avere subdued. The continuance of the wars betweenFrance and England, by presenting favourable op- portunities to the Scotch to revolt, combined with the temptation which the remott 'ess of their situation and the strength of theii coun- try afforded, would have induced continual civil wars between the peasantry and their foreign masters, until the resources of the coun- try were entirely exhausted, and the people sunk in hopeless submission under the power that oppressed them. But in the progress of these wars, an evil of a far greater and more permanent descrip- tion would naturally arise, than either the loss of lives or the devastation of property which they occasioned. In the course of the pro- tracted contest, the landed pnopEnrr of the COUNTIlr WOULD EXTIRELY HAVE CHANGED MAS- TERS ; and in place of being possessed by na- tives of the country permanently settled on their estates, and attached by habit and com- mon interest to the labourers of the ground, it would have come into the hands of foreign noblemen, forced upon the country by military power, hated by the natives, residing always on their English estates, and regarding the people of Scotland as barbarians, whom it was alike impolitic to approach, and necessary to curb by despotic power. But while such would be the feelings and policy of the English proprietors, the stewards whom they appointed to manage their Scotch estates, at a distance from home, and surround- ed by a fierce and hostile population, would have felt the necessity of some assistance, to enable them to maintain their authoritj', or turn to any account the estates that were com- mitted to their care. Unable to procure mili- tary assistance, to enforce the submission of every district, or collect the rents of every pro- pertv, they would, of necessity, have looked to some method of conciliating the people of ihe country ; and such a method would naturally suggest itself in the attachment M'hich the peo- ple bore to the families of original laiVllords.and the consequent means which they possoscd of swaying their refractory dispositions. The^e unhappy men, on the other hand, despairini; of the recovery of their whole estates, would be glad of an opportunity of regain ing any p.-in of them, and eagerly embrace any proposal 1).T which such a compromise miglit be clJixtcd. The sense of mutal dependence, in short, would have led to an arrangement, by which the es« tales of the English nobles u-ne m he ful»ct to the Scottish proprietors for a fixed yrnrlij rent, and they would take upoh themselves tlic task l" M ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. which thcv alenp were competent, of recovering the rents lioin ilie actual cultivators of the soil. As Ihc numbers of the people increased, howcTcr, and the value of the immcnbc farms which had been thus granted to the descendants of their original proprietors was enhanced, the task of collecting rents over so extensive a district would have become too great for an}- individual, and the increased wealth which he had acquired from the growth of his tenantry*, tt-ould have led him to dislike the personal la- jour t.'ith which it would be atton(lciE\ between the proprietor and the ac- tual cultivator of the soil. While these changes went on, the condition of the people, oppressed by a series of suc- cessive masters, each of -whom required to live by their labour, and wholly debarred from ob- taining any Irgal redress for their grievances, would have gradually sunk. Struggling with a barren soil, and a host of insatiable oppres- sors, they could never have acquired any ideas of comfort, or indulged in any hopes of rising in the world. They would, in consequence, have adopted that species of food which pro- mised to aflbrd the greatest nourishment for a family from the smallest space of ground ; and from the universality of this cause, the Potato would have become the staple food of the country. The landed proprietors, on the other hand, who are the natural protectors, and ought al- ways to be the best encouragers of the people on their estates, would have shrunk from the idea of leaving their English possessions, where they nrrc surrounded by an affectionate and comfortable tenantr}^, Aviiere riches and plentj' sprung from the natural fertility of the soil, and where power and security were de- rived from their equal law, to settle in a north- ern climate, amongst a people by whom they were abhorred, and wlicre law was unable to restrain the licentiousness, or reform the bar- barity of the inhabitants. — They would in con- sequence have universally become adsentee pnopniKToiiR; and not only denied to the Scot- tish p<-(tple the incalculaiile advantages of a resident body of landed gentlemen ; but, by their influenec in Parliament, and their animo- sity towards their northern tenantry, prevented any Irpislative measure being pursued for their relief. In such circtimstances, it seems hardly con- ceivable that arts or manufactures should have made any progress in this country. But, if in spite of the obstacles which the unfavourable climate, and unhappy political circumstances of the country presented, manufactures should have begun to spring up amongst us, they vouU speedily have been checked by the com- mercial jealousy of their more powerful south- ern rivals. Bills would have been brought into parliament, as was actually done in re- gard to a neighbouring island, proceeding on the preamble, " that it is expedient that the Scottish manufactures should be discou raged;" and the prohibition of sending theii goods into the richer market of England, whither the whole wealth of the country were already drawn, would have annihilated the in- fant elforts of manufacturing industry. Nor would the Reformation, which, as mat- ters stand, has been of such essential service to this country, have been, on the hypothesis which we are pursuing, a lesser source of suf- fering, or a greater bar to the improvement of the people. From being embraced by their English landlords, the Reformed Religion would have been hateful to the peasants of Scotland ; the Catholic priests Avould have sought refuge among them, from the persecu- tion to which they Avere exposed in their native seats ; and both would have been strengthened in their hatred to those persons to whom their common misfortune was owing. Religious hatred would thus have combined with all the previous circumstances of irritation, to in- crease the rancour between the proprietors of the soil, and the labouring classes in this country; and from the circumstance of the latter adhering to the proscribed religion, they would have been rendered yet more incapable of procuring a redress for their grievances in a legislative form. Had the English, therefore, succeeded in subduing Scotland in the time of Robert Bruce, and in maintaining their authority from that period, we think it not going too far to assert, that the people of this country would have been now in an unhappy and distracted condition : that religious discussion and civil rancour would have mutually exasperated the higher and lower orders against each other ; that the landed proprietors would have been permanently settled in the victorious country ; that everywhere a class of middlemen would have been established to grind and ruin the labours of the poor ; that manufactures would have been scanty, and the country covered with a numerous and indigent population, idle in their habits, ignorant in their ideas, ferocious in their manners, professing a reli- gion which held them in bondage, and cling- ing to prejudices from which their ruin must ensue. Is it said, that this is mere conjecture, and that nothing in the history of English govern- ment warrants us in concluding, that such would have been the consequence of the esta- blishment of their tlominion in this country ? Alas ! it is not conjectnrc. The history of Ikk- LAND affords too melancholy a coniirmation of the truth of the positions which Ave have advanced, and of the reality of the deduction which Ave have pursued. In that deduction we have not reasoned on hypothesis or con- jecture. Every step Avhich Ave have hinted at, has there been taken ; every consequence which we have suggested, has there ensued. Those acquainted with the history of that unhappy country, or who have studied its present con ROBERT BRUCE. 99 dition, will recognise in the conjectural history which we have sketched, of what ivould have followed tlifi annexation of this country to England in the time of Edward II., the real history of what has followed its sulDJugation in the time of Henry II., and perceive in the causes which we have pointed out, as what would have operated upon our people, the real ccmses of the misery and wretchedness in which its population is involved. Nor is the example of the peaceful submis- sion of Wales to the dominion of England, any authority against this view of the subject. Wales is so inconsiderable in comparison to England, it comes so completely in contact with its richest provinces, and is so enveloped by its power, that when once subdued, all thought of resistance or revolt became hope- less. That mountainous region, therefore, fell as quietly and as completely into the arms of England, as if it had been one of the Hept- archy, which in process of time was incor- porated with the English monarch}% Very different is the situation of Scotland, where the comparative size of the country, the fervid spirit of the inhabitants, the remoteness of its situation, and the strength of its mountains, continually must have suggested the hope of successful revolt, and as necessarily occa- sioned the calamitous consequences which we have detailed. The rebellion of Owen Glen- dower is sufficient to convince us, that nothing but the utter insignificance of Wales, compared to England, prevented the continual revolt of the Welsh people, and the consequent intro- duction of all those horrors which have fol- lowed the establishment of English dominion among the inhabitants of Ireland. Do we then rejoice in the prosperity of our country 1 Do we exult at the celebrity which it has acquired in arts and in arms 1 Do we duly estimate the blessings which it has long enjoyed from equal law and personal freedom 1 — Do we feel grateful for the intelligence, the virtue, and the frugality of our peasantry, and acknowledge, with thankfulness, the practical beneficence and energetic spirit of our landed proprietors 1 Let us turn to the grave of Ro- bert Bruce, and feel as we ought the inex- pressible gratitude due to him as the remote author of all these blessings. But for his bold and unconquerable spirit, Scotland might have shared with Ireland the severity of English conquest; and, instead of exulting now in the prosperity of our country, the energy of our peasantry, and the patriotic spirit of our resi- dent landed proprietors, we might have been deploring with her an absent nobility, an oppressive tenan':ry, a bigotted and ruined people. It was therefore, in truth, a meraof able day for this country when the remains of this great prmce were rediscovered amidst the rums m which they had so long been hid; when the arms which slew Henry de Bohun were remterred in the land Avhich they had saved from slavery ; and the head which had beheld the trmmph of Bannockburn was con- signed to the dust, after five centuries of grate- ful remembrance and experienced obligation. It IS by thus appreciating the merits of depart- ed Avorth, that similar virtues in future are to be called forth ; and by duly feeUng the conse- quences of heroic resistance in time past, that the spirit is to be excited by which the future fortunes of'the state are to be maintained. In these observations we have no intention, as truly we have no desire, to depreciate the incalculable blessings which this country has derived from her union with England. We feel, as strongly as any can do, the immense advantage which this measure Ijrought to the wealth, the industry, and the spirit of Scotland. We are proud to acknowledge, that it is to the efforts of English patriotism that we owe the establishment of liberty in our civil code ; and to the influence of English example, the diffu- sion of a free spirit among our people. But it is just because we are duly impressed with these feelings that we recur, with such grate- ful pride, to the patriotic resistance of Robert Bruce ; it is because we feel that we should be unworthy of sharing in English liberty, un- less we had struggled for our own indepen- dence, and incapable of participating in its benefits, unless we had shown that we were capable of acquiring it. Nor are we ashamed to own, that it is the spirit which English free- dom has awakened that first enabled us fully to appreciate the importance of the efforts which our ancestors made in resisting their dominion ; and that but for the Union on equal terms with that power, we would have been ignorant of the debt which we owed to those who saved us from its subjugation. In our national fondness, therefore, for the memory of Robert Bruce, the English should perceive the growth of those principles from which their own unequalled greatness has arisen; nor should they envy the glory of the field of Bannockburn, when we appeal to it as out best title to be quartered in their arms. Yet mourn not, land of Fame, Though ne'er the leopards on thy shield Retreated from so sad a field Since Norman William came. Oft may thine annals justly hoast, Of battles there by Scotland lost, Grudge not her victory ; When for her freeborn rights she pirove, Rights dear to all who freedom lore, To none so dear as thee. IM ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. PAUIS IN 1814.* With whatever sentiments a stranger may enter Paris, his feelings must be the same with regard to the monuments of ancient mag- nificence, or of modern taste, which it contains. All that the vanity or patriotism of a long series of sovereigns could effect for the em- bellishment of the capital in which they resided; all that the conquests of an ambitious and unprincipled army could accumulate from the spoils of the nations whom they had sub- dued, are there presented to the eye of the stranger with a profusion which obliterates every former prejudice, and stifles the feelings of national emulation in exultation at the greatness of human genius. The ordinary buildings of Paris, as every traveller has observed, and as all the world knows, are in general mean and uncomfort- able. The height and gloomy aspect of the houses ; the narrowness of the streets, and the want of pavement for foot passengers, convey an idea of antiquity, which ill accords with what the imagination had anticipated of the modern capital of the French empire. This circumstance renders the admiration of the spectator greater when he first comes in sight of its public cdifces ; when he is conducted to the Place Louis Quinze or the Pont Neuf, from whence he has a general view of the principal buildings of this celebrated capital. With the single exception of the view of Lou- don from the terrace of the Adelphi, there is no point in Britain where the effect of archi- tectural design is so great as in the situations which have now been mentioned. The view irom the former of these, combines many of the most striking objects which Paris has to ? resent. To the east, the long front of the 'uileries rises over the dark mass of foliage which cover its gardens; to the south, the picturesque aspect of the town is broken by the varied objects which the river presents, and the fine perspective of the Bridge of Peace, terminating in the noble front of the palace of the Legislative Body; to the west, the long avenues of the Elysian Fields are closed by the pillars of a triumphal arch which Napo- leon had commenced ; while, to the north, the beautiful fa<;ade of the Place itself, leaves the spectator only room to discover at a greater distance the foundation of the Temple of Glorj', which he hnd commenced, and in the execution of which he was interrupted by those ambitious enterprises to which his sub- sequent downfall was owing.f To a painter's • Wriltcn In Mny nnd Juno, IRU, diirini; a residence •t Pnrl«, when tin- iillird uriiiicH ncnipieil the rily, niid lh«" crrtit niiiHciiin nf itir; Lmivri' \v;ih iinlniirlii'il ; niul Pulilinlii-d In "Trnvi-U in rriiiirc in lsii_ir)," wliirli lupiicd rrom the prcuB in KdinlnirKli In \^\:t, to llio flrnt volume of which the author conlrilnitcd a few Uiapli-m. t Kinro cnmpletcd, and forming the beautiful periRlylc •f the Madeleine. eye, the effect of the whole scene is increased by the rich and varied fore-ground, which everywhere presents itself, composed of the shrubs with which the skirts of the square are adorned, and the lofty poplars which rise amidst the splendour of architectural beauty; while recent events give a greater interest to the spot from which this beauty is surveyed, by the remembrance, that it was here that Louis XVI. fell a martyr to the revolutionary principles, and that it was here that the Em peror Alexander and the other princes of Europe took their station when their armies passed in triumph through the walls of Paris. The Aaew from the Pont Neuf, though no) striking upon the whole, embraces objects of greater individual beauty. The gay and ani- mated quays of the city covered with foot pas sengers, and, Avitli all the varied exhibitions of industrious occupation, which, from the warm- ness of the climate, are carried on in the open air ; — the long and splendid front of the Louvre, and the Tuileries ; — the bold projections of the Palais des Arts, of the Hotel de la Monnaie, and other public buildings on the opposite side of the river; — the beautiful perspective of the bridges, adorned by the magnificent colonnade which fronts the Palace of the Legislative Body; — and the lofty picturesque buildings of the centre of Paris, surrounding the more ele- vated towers of Notre Dame, foiTn a scene, which, though less perfect, is more striking, and more characteristic than the scene from the centre of the Place Louis Quinze. It con- ve3's at once a general idea of the French capital ; of that mixture of poverty and splen- dour by which it is so remarkably distinguish- ed; of that grandeur of national power, and that degradation of individual importance which marked the ancient dynast}' of the French nation. It marks too, in an historical view, the changes of public feeling Avhich the people of this country have undergone, from the distant period when the towers of Notre Dame rose amidst the austerity of Gothic taste, and were loaded Avith the riches of Catholic superstition, to that boasted aera, when the loyalty of the French people exhausted the wealth and the genius of the country, to deco» rate with classic taste the residence of their sovereigns ; and lastly, to those later days, when the names of religion and of loyalty have alike been forgotten ; when the national exulta- tion reposed only on the trophies of military greatness, and the iron yoke of imperial power was forgotten in the monuments which record the deeds of imperial glory. To the general observation on the infcrioritj of the common buildings in Paris, there are some remarkable exceptions. The Boulevards, which are the remains of the ancient ramparts which surrounded the city at a former period, are, in general, beautiful, both from the circu- PARIS IN 1814. 10) lar form in which they are built, which pre- vents the view from being ever too extensive for the objects which it contains, and presents them in the most picturesque aspect ; from the breadth which they everywhere preserve, and which affords room for the spectator to observe the magnificence of the detached palaces with which they abound ; and iVom the rows of trees with which they are shaded, and which com- bine singularly well with the irregular cha- racter of the building which they generally present. In the skirts of the town, and more especially in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, the beauty of the streets is greatly increased by the detached hotels or villas, surrounded by gardens, which are everywhere to be met with, in which the lilac, the laburnum, the Bois de Judee, and the acacia, grow in the most luxu- riant manner, and on the green foliage of which, the eye reposes with singular delight, amidst the bright and dazzling whiteness of the stone with which they are surrounded. The Hotel des Invalides, the Chelsea Hospital of France, is one of the objects on which the Parisians principally pride themselves, and to which a stranger is conducted immediately after his arrival in that capital. The institu- tion itself appears to be well conducted, and to give general satisfaction to the wounded men, who have there found an asylum from tJie miseries of war. These men live in habits of perfect harmony among each other; a state of things widely diiferent from that of our veterans in Greenwich Hospital, and which is probably chiefly owing to the cheerfulness and equanimity of temper which form the best feature in the French character. 7'here is something in the style of the architecture of this building, which accords well with the object to which it is devoted. The front is distinguished by a simple manly portico, and a dome of the finest proportion rises above its centre, which is visible from all parts of the city. This dome was gilded by order of Bona- parte: and however much a fastidious taste may regret the addition, it certainly gave an air of splendour to the whole, which was in perfect unison with the feelings of exultation which the sight of this monument of military glory was then fitted to awaken among the French people. The exterior of this edifice was formerly surrounded by cannon captured by the armies of France at different periods: and ten thousand standards, the trophies of victory during the wars of two centuries, waved under its splendid dome, and enveloped the sword of Frederic the Great, which hung from the centre, until the 31st of March, 1814, when they were all burnt by order of Maria Louisa, to prevent their falling into the vic- torious hands of the allied powers. If the character of the architecture of the Hotel des Invalides accords well with the object to which that building is destined; the character of the Louvre is not less in unison with the spirit of the fine arts, to which it is consecrated. It is impossible for language to convey any adequate idea of the impression which this exquisite building awakens in the mind of a stranger. The beautiful proportions, and the fine symmetry of the great fagade, give an air of simplicity to the distant view of thii edihce, which is not diminished, on nearer an- proach, by the unrivalled beauty of its orna- ments and detail; but when you cross the threshold of the portico, and pass under iu noble archway into the inner court, ail consU derations are absorbed in the throb of admira- tion, which IS excited by the sudden display of all that IS lovely and harmonious in Grecian architecture. You find yourself in the midst of the noblest and yet chastest display of archi- tectural beauty, where every ornament pos- sesses the character by which the whole is distinguished, and where the whole possesses the grace and elegance which every ornament presents :— You find yourself on the spot, where all the monuments of ancient art are deposited — where the greatest exertions of mortal genius are preserved — and where a palace has at last been raised worthy of being the depository of the collected genius of the human race. — It bears a higher character than that of being the residence of imperial power; it seems destined to loftier purposes than to be the abode of earthly greatness ; and the only forms by which its halls would not be degraded, are those models of ideal perfection which the genius of ancient Greece created to exalt the character of a heathen world. Placed in a more elevated spot, and destined to a still higher object, the Pantheon bears in its front the ti-aces of the noble purpose for which it was intended. — It was intended to be the cemeteiy of all the great men who had deserved well of their country ; and it bears the inscription, above its entrance, Jiux grands Ames La Pulric rcconnoissnntc. The character of its architecture is well adapted to the impression it is intended to convey, and suits the simplicity of the noble inscription which its portico presents. Its situation has been selected with singular taste, to aid the effect which was thus intended. It is placed at the top of an eminence, which shelves in a declivity on every side ; and the immediate approach is by an immense flight of steps, which form the base of the building, and in- crease the effect which its magnitude produces. Over the entrance rises a portico of lofty pil- lars, finely proportioned, supporting a magni- ficent entablature of the Corinthian order; and the whole terminates in a dome of vast dimensions, forming the highest object in the whole city. The impression which every one must feel in crossing its threshold, is that of religious awe ; the individual is lost in the great- ness of the objects with which he is surrounded, and he dreads to enter what seems the abode of a greater power, and to have been framed for the purposes of more elevated worsliiji. The Louvre might have been fitted for tin' gay scenes of ancient sacrifice ; it suits the hrilliant conceptions of heathen mythology ; and seems the fit abode of those ideal forms, in which the imagination of ancient times imhodiod iheir conceptions of divine perfection; Imt the Pan- theon is adapted fbr a holier W(.r>hip. nnd accords with the character of a pun-r h-- iH ; and the vastness and solitude of its ui.tr...lden chambers awaken those feelings of human weakness, and that sentiment ol human im- lOS ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. mortality which befit the temple of a spiritual laiili. 'I'hc spectator is led, by the sight of this (treat im>iMiment of sacred architecture in tiie Grecian stvle. to compare it with the CJothic rhurrhes of France, and, in particular, with the ("ailudral of Beauvais, the interior of which IS finished with greater delicacy, and in finer proportions, than any other edifice of a similar kind in that country. The impression which the inimitable choir of Beauvais pro- duces is widely dillerent from that which we felt on entering the lolly dome of the Panliicon at Paris. The light pinnacles, the fretted roof, the aspiring form of the Gothic edifice, seemed to have been framed by the hands of aerial beings ; and produced, even from a distance, that impression of grace and airiness which it was the peculiar object of this species of Gothic architecture to excite. On passing the high archway which covers the western door, and entering the immense aisles of the Cathe- dral, the sanctity of the place produces a deeper impression, and the grandeur of the forms awakens profounder feelings. The light of day is excluded, the rays of the sun come mel- lowed through the splendid colours with which the windows are stained, and cast a religious light over the marble pavement which covers the floor; while the eye reposes on the har- monious forms of the lancet windows, or is bewildered in the profusion of ornament with which the roof is adorned, or is lost in the deep perspective of its aisles. The impres- sion which the whole produces, is that of reli- gious emotion, singularly suited to the genius of Christianity ; it is seen in that obscure light which fits the solemnity of religious duty, and awakens those feelings of intense delight, which prepare the mind for the high strain of religious praise. But it is not the deep feeling of humility and weakness which is produced by the dark chambers and massy pillars of the Pantheon at Paris ; it is not in the mausoleum of the dead that you seem to wander, nor on the thoughts of the great that have gone before you, that the mind revolves ; it is in the scene of thanksgiving that your admiration is fixed; it is with the emblems of hope that your devo- tion is awakened, and with the enthusiasm of gratitude that the mind is filled. Beneath the gloomy roof of the Grecian temple, the spirit is concentrated within itself; it seeks the re- pose which solitude affords, and meditates on ihe fate of the immortal soul ; but it loves to follow the multitude into the Gothic cathedral, to join in the song of grateful praise which peals through its lengthened aisles, and to share in the enthusiasm which belongs to the exercise of common devotion. The Cathedral of Notre Dame is the only Gothic building of note in Paris, and it is by no means equal to the expectations that are naturally furmed i.f it. The style of its arclii- t'cture is not that of the finest Gothic ; it has neither the exquisite lightness of ornament which distinguish the summit of Gloucester Cathedral, nor the fine lancet windows which ifive s(i unriviilled a tn^TUty to the interior of Beauvais, nor the richness of roof which coven 'he tombs of Westminster Abbey. Its character is that of massy greatness ; its orna ments are rich rather than elegant, and its in terior striking, more from its immense siz« than the beauty of the proportion in which itii; formed. In spite of all these circumstances, however, the Cathedral of Notre Dame pro- duces a deep impression on the mind of the beholder: its towers rise to a stupendous height above all the buildings Avhich surround them ; while the stone of every other edifice is of a light colour, they alone are black with the smoke of centuries; and exhibit a venera- ble aspect of ancient greatness in the midst of the brilliancy of modern decoration with whicb the city is filled. Even the crowd of ornaments with which they are loaded, and the heavy proportion in which they are built, are forgot- ten in the eiTect which their magnitude pro- duces ; they suit the gloomy character of the building they adorn, and accord with the ex- pression of antiquated power by which its aged forms are now distinguished. To those who have been accustomed to the form of worship which is established in Pro testant countries, there is nothing so striking in the Catholic churches as the complete oblivion of rank, or any of the distinctions of estab lished society which there universally prevails. There are no divisions of seats, nor any places fixed for any particular classes of society All, of whatever rank or station, kneel alike upon the marble pavement; and the w'hole extent of the church is open for the devotion of all classes of the people. You frequently see the poorest citizens Avith their children kneeling on the stone, close to those of the highest rank, or the most extensive fortunes. This custom may appear painful to those who have been habituated to the forms of devotion in the English churches ; but it produces an impression on the mind of the spectator Avhich nothing in our service is capable of effecting. To see the individual form lost in the im- mensity of the objects wath which he is sur- rounded ; to see all ranks and ages blended in the exercise of common devotion; to see all distinction forgotten in the sense of common infirmity, suits the spirit of that religion which was addressed to the poor as w^ell as to the rich, arid fits the presence of that being before whom all ranks are equal. Nor is it M'ithout a good effect upon the feel- ings of mankind, that this custom has formed a part of the Catholic service. Amidst that degradation of the great body of the people, which marks the greater part of the Catholic countries — amidst the insolence of aristocratic power, which the doctrines of the Catholic faith are so well suited to support, it is fitting there should be some occasions on which the distinctions of the Avorld should be forgotten; some moments in which the rich as M'ell as the poor should be humbled before a greater power — in which they should be reminded of the common faith in which they have beea baptized, of the common duties to which they are called, and the common hopes which they have been permitted to form. High Mass was performed in Notre Dame, with all the pomp of the Catholic service, for the souls of Louis XVL, Marte Antoinette and PARIS IN 1814. 103 the Dauphin, on May 9, 1814, soon after the King's arrival in Paris. The cathedral was hung with black in every part ; the brilliancy of day wholly excluded, and it was lighted only by double rows of wax tapers, Avhich burned round the coffins, placed in the centre of the choir. It was crowded to excess in every part; all the marshals, peers, and dignitaries of France were stationed with the royal family near the centre of the cathedral, and all the principal officers of the allied armies attended at the celebration of the service. The king was present, though, without being perceived by the vast assembly by Avhom he was surrounded; and the Duchess d'Angou- leme exhibited, in' this melancholy duty, that mixture of firmness and sensibility by which her character has always been distinguished. It was said, that there were several persons present at this solemn service who had voted for the death of the king ; and many of those assembled must doubtless have been con- scious, that they had been instrumental in the death of those for whose souls this solemn service was now performing. The greater part, however, exhibited the' symptoms of ge- nuine sorrow, and seemed t' participate in the solemnity with unfeigned devotion. The Catholic worship was here displayed in its utmost splendour; all the highest prelates of France were assembled to give dignity to the spectacle ; and all that art could devise was exhausted to render the scene impressive in the eyes of the people. To those, however, who ' had been habituated to the simplicity of the English form, the variety of unmean- ing ceremony, the endless gestures and un- ceasing bows of the clergy who officiated, destroyed the impression which the solemnity of the service would otherwise have produced. But though the service itself appeared ridi- culous, the effect of the whole scene was sublime in the greatest degree. The black tapestry hung in heavy fold^ round the sides of the cathedral, and magnified the impres- sion which its vastness produced. The tapers which surrounded the coffins threw a red and gloomy light over the innumerable multitude which thronged the floor; their receding rays faintly illuminated the further recesses, or strained to pierce the obscure gloom in which the summits of the' pillars were lost; while the sacred music pealed through the distant aisles, and deepened the effect of the thousands of voices which joined in the strains of re- pentant prayer. Annong the exhibitions of art to which a stranger is conducted immediately after his arrival in the French metropolis, there is none which is more characteristic of the dis- position of the people than the Miisee dcs Monv- mms Francois, situated in the Rue des Petits Augustins.* This is a collection of all the finest sepulchral monuments from different parts of France, particularly from the Cathe- dral of St. Denis, where the cemetery of the royal family had, from time immemorial, been placed. It is said by the French, that the collection of these monuments into one museum was the only means of preserving them from the fury of the people during the Revolution ; and certainly nothing but abs< lute necessity could have justified the bai barous idea of bringing them from the graves they were intended to adorn, to one spot. where all associations connected with them are destroyed. It is not the mere survey of the monuments of the dead that is interesting, —not the examination of the specimens of arl by which they may be adorned;— it is the remembrance of the deeds which they are intended to record,— of the virtues they are destined to perpetuate,- of the pious gratitude of Aviiich they are now the only testimony- above all, of the dust they actually cover They remind us of the great men who formerly filled the theatre of the world, — they carry us back to an age which, by a very natural illu- sion, Ave conceive to have been both wiser and happier than our own, and present the record of human greatness in that pleas- ing distance when the great features of cha- racter alone are remembered, when time has drawn its veil over the weaknesses of mor- tality, and its virtues are sanctified by the hand of death. It is a feeling fitted to elevate the soul ; to mingle the thoughts of death with the recollection of the virtues by which life had been dignified, and renovate in everj heart those high hopes of religion which spring from the grave of former virtue. All this delightful, this purifying illusion, is destroyed by the way in which the monuments are collected in the museum at Paris. They are there brought together from all parts of France ; severed from the ashes of the dead they were intended to cover; and arranged in systematic order to illustrate the history of the art whose progress they unfold. The tombs of all the kings of France, of all the generals by Avhom its glory has been extended, of the statesmen by whom its power, and the writers byAvhom its fame has been established, are crowded together in one collection, and heaped upon each other, without any other connection than that of the time in which they were origi- nally raised. The museum accordingly ex- hibits, in the most striking manner, the power of arrangement and classification which the French possess; it is valuable, as containing fine models of the greatest men which France has produced, and exhibits a curious speci- men of the progress of art, from its first commencement, to the period of its greatest perfection; but it has wholly lost that deep and peculiar interest which belongs to th« monuments of the dead in their origuiai situation. Adjoining to the museum, is a garden planted with trees, in which many of liie finest monuments are placed; but in whicfi the depravity of the French taste api'ears in the most striking manner. It is surroiindcii with high houses, and darkened by the .shade of lofty buildings: yet in this glnomv situa- tion, they have placed the tomb of I enclon and the' united monument of AhH.inl an.l Eloise: profaning thus, by tl.c harhar.-ii. affectation of artificial taste, and ihc M.li more shocking imitation of ancient supmtilion, thf remains of those whose names .are rnshnned in every heart which can Icel the kauly of 104 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS EStSAi 8. moral exrellcncc, or share in the sj'mpalhy with youthful sorrow. How different are the fcclinps with wliich an Englishman snrvcys the untouched monu- menls of Enijlish preatness! — and treads the floor of that venerable buildinj^ which shnnids the remains of all who have difrnilied their native land — in which her patriots, her poets, and her philosophers " sleep with her kings, and dipiify the scene," which the rage of popular fury has never dared to profane, and the hand of victorious power has never been able to violate ; where the ashes of the im- mortal dead still lie in undisturbed repose, under tliat splendid roof which covered the tombs of its earliest kings, and witnessed, from its first dawn, the infant glory of the English people. — Nor could the remembrance of these national monuments ever excite in the mind of a native of France, the same feeling of heroic devotion which inspired the sublime expression of Nelson, as he boarded the Spanish Admiral's ship at St. Vincent's — •• Westminster Abbey or victory !" Though the streets in Pa'ris have an aged and uncomfortable appearance, the form of the houses is such, as, at a distance, to present a picturesque aspect. Their height, their sharp and irregular tops, the vast variety of forms which they assume when seen from different quarters, all combine to render a dis- tant view of them more striking than the long rows of uniform houses of wliich London is composed. The domes and steeples of Paris, however, are greatly inferior, both in number and magnificence, to those of the English capital. The gardens of the Tuileries and the Luxembourg, of which the Parisians think so highly, and which are constantly filled with all ranks of citizens, are laid out with a singular- ity of taste, of which, in this country, we can scarcely form any conception. The straight walks — the dipt trees — the marble fountains are fast wearing out in all parts of England; they are to be met with only round the man- sions of ancient families, and, even there are kept rather from the influence of ancient prejudice, or from the afl!ection to hereditary forms, than from their coincidence with the present taste of the English people. They arc seldom, accordingly, disagreeable, with us, to the eye of the most cultivated taste; their singularity forms a pleasing variety to the continued succession of lawns and shrub- beries which are everywhere to be met with ; and they are regarded rather as the venerable marks of ancient splendour, than as the bar- barous affectation of modern distinction. In France, the native deformity of this taste appears in its real light, withcmt the colouring of any such adventitious circumstances as conceal it in this country. It does not exist onder the soAening veil of ancient manners; its avenues do not conduct to the decaying ftbodc of hereditary greatness — its gardens do hot mark the scenes of former festivity — its f»)unlaiiis arc not covered with the moss which haji grown for centuries. It ajipears as the mo- del of present taste ; it is considered as the indi- ra'.io^of existing splendour; and sought after as the form in which the beauty of nature la now to be admired. All that association blends in the mind with the style of ancient gardening in England is instantly divested by its appearance in France ; and the whole im- portance is then felt of that happy change in the national taste, whereby variety has been made to succeed to uniformil)', and the imita- tion of nature to come in the place of the exhi- bition of art. The remarkable characteristic of the taste of France is, that this love of artificial beauty continues with undiminished force, at a period when, in other nations, it has given place to a more genuine love for the beauty of nature. In them, the natural progress of refinement has led from the admiration of the art of imita- tion to the love of the subjects imitated. It> France, this early prejudice continues in its pristine vigour at the present moment: they never lose sight of the effort of the artist ; their admiration is fixed not on the quality or object in nature, but on the artificial representation of it; not on the thing signified, but the sign. It is hence that they have such exalted ideas of the perfection of their artist David, whose paintings are nothing more than a representa- tion of the human figure in its most extrava- gant and phrenzied attitudes ; that they are insensible to the simple display of real emo- tion, but dwell with delight upon the vehement representation of it which their stage exhibits ; and that, leaving the charming heights of Belle- ville, or the sequestered banks of the Seine almost wholly deserted, they crowd to the stifi" alleys of the Elysian Fields, or the artificial beauties of the gardens of Versailles. In the midst of Paris this artificial style of gardening is not altogether unjUeasing ; it is in unison, in some measure, with the regular character of the buildings with which it is surrounded ; and the profusion of statues and marble vases continues the impression which the character of their palaces is fitted to pro- duce. But at Versailles, at St. Cloud, and Fontainbleau, amidst the luxuriance of vegeta- tion, and surrounded by the majesty of forest scenery, it destroys altogether the effect which arises from the irregularity of natural beauty. Every one feels straight borders, and square porticoes and broad alie)^s, to be in vuiison with the immediate neighbourhood of an anti- quated mansion ; but they become painful when extended to those remoter parts of the grounds, when the character of the scene is determined by the rudeness of uncultivated nature. There are some occasions, nevertheless, on which the gardens of the Tuileries present a _ beautiful spectacle, in spite of the artificial 'fl taste in which they are formed. From the warmth of the cliinate, the Parisians, of all classes, live much in the open air, and frequent the public gardens in great numbers during the continuance of the fine weather. In the evening especially, they are filled with citi- zens, who repose themselves under the shade of the lofty trees, after the heat and the fa- tigues of the day; and they there present a spectacle of more than ordinary interest and beauty. The disposition of the French suit* PARIS IN 1814. 105 the character of the scene, and harmonizes with the impression which the stillness of the evening produces on the mind. There is Done of that rioting or confusion by -which an assembly of the middling classes in England is too often disgraced ; no quarrelling or in- toxication even among the poorest ranks, nor any appearance of that degrading want which destroys the jj.easing idea of public happiness. The people appear all to enjoy a certain share of individual prosperity; their intercoiirse is conducted with unbroken harmony, and they seem to resign themselves to those delightful feelings which steal over the mind during the stillness and serenity of a summer evening. [t would seem as if all the angry passions of the breast were soothed by the voice of repos- ing nature — as if the sounds of labour were stilled, lest they should break the harmony of the scene — as if vice itself had concealed its deformity from the overpowering influence of natural beauty. Still more beautiful, perhaps, is the appear- ance of this scene during the stillness of the night, when the moon throws her dubious rays over the objects of nature. The gardens of the Tuileries remain crowded with people, who seem to enjoy the repose Mdiich univer- sally prevails, and from whom no sound is to be heard which can break the stillness or the serenity of the scene. The regularity of the forms is wholly lost in the masses of light and shadow that are there displayed ; the foliage throws a checkered shade over the ground beneath, while the distant vistas of the Elysian Fields are seen in that soft and mellow light by which the radiance of the moon is so pecu- liarly distinguished. After passing through the scenes of gaiety and festivity which mark these favourite scenes of the French people, small encampments were frequently to be seen, of the allied troops, in the remote parts of the grounds. The appearance of these bivouacks, composed of Cossack squadrons, Hungarian hussars, and Prussian artillery, in the obscurity of moonlight, and surrounded by the gloom of forest scenery, was beyond measure striking. The picturesque forms of the soldiers, sleeping on their arms under the shade of the trees, or half hid by the rude huts which they had erected for their shelter; the varied altitudes of the horses standing amidst the wagons by which the camp was followed, or sleeping be- side the veterans whom they had borne through all the fortunes of war ; the dark masses of the artillery, dimly discerned in the shades of- night, or faintly reflecting the pale light of the moon, presented a scene of the most beautiful description, in which the rude features of war were softened by the tranquillity of peaceful life : and the interest of present repose was enhanced b}^ the remembrance of the wintry storms and bloody fields through which these brave men had passed, during the memorable campaigns in which they had been engaged. The effect of the whole was increased by the perfect stillness Avhich everywhere prevailed, broken only at intervals by the slow step of the sentinel, as he paced his rounds, or the S"weeter sounds of those beautiful airs, which, in a far distant country, recalled to the Russian soldier the joys and the lappiness of his native land. St. Cloud was the favourite residence of Bonaparte, and, from this circumstance, pos- sesses an interest which does not belong to the other miperial palaces. It stands high, upon a lofty bank overhanging the Seine, which takes a bold sweep in the plain below; and the steep declivity which descends to its banks, is clothed with magnificent woods of aged elms. The character of the sccnerv- is bold and rugged;— the trees are of the wildest forms, and the most stupendous height, ani the banks, for the most part, steep and irregu- lar. It is here, accordinglj-, that the French gardening appears in all its genuine deformity; and that its straight walks and endless foun- tains display a degree of formality and art, destructive to the peculiar beauty" by which the scene is distinguished. These gardens, however, were the favourite and private walks of the emperor ; — it was there that he meditated those schemes of ambition which were des- tined to shake tjie established thrones of Europe; — it was under the shade of its luxu- riant foliage that he formed the plan of all the mighty projects which he had iu contempla- tion ; — it was in the splendid apartments of its palace that the Councils of France assem- bled, to revolve on the means of permanently destroying the English power: — It was here too, by a most remarkable coincidence^ that his destruction was finally accomplished; — that the last convention was concluded, by which his second dethronement was com- pleted ; — and that the victorious arms of Eng- land dictated the tenns of surrender to his conquered capital. St. Cloud, in 1814, was the head-quarters of Prince Schwartzenbcrg ; and the Austrian grenadiers mounted guard at the gates of the Imperial Palace. The banks of the Seine, below the palace, were covered by an immense bivouac of Austrian troops, and the fires of their encampment twinkled in the obscurity of twilight, amidst the low brushwood with which the sides of the river were clothed. The appearance of this bivouac, dimly discerned through the rugged stems of lofty trees, or half-hid by the luxuriant branches which ob- scured the view — the picturesque and varied aspect of the camp, covered with wagons, and all the accompaniments of military service ; — the columns of smoke rising from the fires with which it was interspersed, and the in- numerable horses crowded amidst the con- fused multitude of men and carriages, or rest- ing in more sequestered spots on the sides of the river, with their forms finely rciicctcd in its unruffled waters — presented a spectacle which exhibited \var in its most striking aspect, and gave a character to the scene which would have suited the romantic strain of Salvator> mind. St. Germain, though less picturrsqnely situ ated than St. Cloud, presents features never theless, of more than ordinary mngnificrnce. The Palace, now converted into a school c. military education by Napoleon, is a mean irregular building; though it posses.o-. .i err- tain interest, by having been long the icMdcncc IM ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. of the exiled house of Stuart. The situation, however, is truly fitted for an imperial dwcll- inp; it stands on the cdfre of a hi^h bank, overhan^ins 'he Seine, at the end of a mafinifi- cent terrace, a mile and a half lonj^, built on the projecting heights which edge the river. The walk along this terrace is the finest spec- tacle which the vicinity of Paris has to present. It is backed along its whole extent by the im- mense forest of St. Germain, llie foliage of which overhangs the road, and in the recesses of which you can occasionally discern those beautiful peeps which form the peculiar charac- teristic of forest scenery. The steep bank which descends to the river is clothed with orchards and vineyards in all the luxuriance of a southern climate, and, in front, there is spread beneath your feet the immense plain in which the Seine wanders, whose waters are descried at intervals through the woods and gardens with which its banks are adorned; while, in the farthest distance, the towers of St. Denis, and the heights of Paris, form an irregular outline on the verge of the horizon. It is a scene exhibiting the most beautiful aspect of cultivated nature, and would have been the fit residence for a monarch who loved to surv'ey his subjects' happiness : but it was deserted bj- the miserable weakness of Louis XIV., because the view terminated in the cemetery of the kings of France, and his en- joyment of it would have been destroyed by the thoughts of mortal decay. Versailles, which that monarch chose as the ordinary abode of his splendid court, is less favourably situate for a royal dwelling, though the view from the great front of the palace is beautifully clothed with luxuriant woods. The palace itself is a magnificent building of im- mense extent, loaded with the riches of archi- tectural beauty, but destitute of that fine pro- portion and lightness of ornament, which spread so indescribable a charm over the palace of the Louvre. The interior is in a state of lamentable deca}^ having been pillaged at the commencement of the revolutionary fury, and formed into a barrack for the repub- lican soldiers, the marks of whose violence are still visible in the faded splendour of its magnificent apartments. They still show, how- ever, the favourite apartments of Maria An- toinette, the walls of which are covered with the finest mirrors, and some remains of the furniture are still preserved, which even the licentious fury of the French army seems to have been afraid to violate. The -gardens, on which all the riches of France, and all the «!frts in arms. There is no scenery round Paris so striking as the Forest of Fontainbleau, but the heights of Belleville exhibit nature in a more pleasing aspect, and are distinguished by features of a gentler character. Montmartre, and the ridge of Ifellcville, form those celebrated heights which command Paris on the northern side, and which were so obstinately contested be- tween the allies and the French, on the 30th March, 1814, previous to the capture of Paris by the allied sovereigns. Montmartre is covered for the most part with liouses, and presents nothing to attract the eye of the observer, ex- cept the extensive view which is to be met with at its summit. The heights of Belleville are varied with wood, with orchards, vine- yards, and gardens, interspersed with cottages and villas, and cultivated with the utmost care. There are few enclosures, but the whole extent of the ground is thickly studded with walnuts, fruit-trees, and forest timber, which, from a distance, give it the appearance of one continued wood. On a nearer approach, how- ever, you find it intersected in every direction by small paths, which wind among the vine- yards, or through the woods with which the hills are covered, and present, at every turn, those charming little scenes which form the peculiar characteristic of woodland scenery. The cottages, half hid by the profusion of fruit-trees, or embosomed in the luxuriant woods, with which they are everywhere sur- rounded, increase the interest which the scene- ry itself is fitted to produce ; they combine the delightful idea of the peasant's enjoyment with the beauty of the spot on which his dwelling is placed; and awaken, in the midst of the boundless luxuriance of vegetable nature, those deeper feelings of moral delight, which spring from the contemplation of human happi- ness. The efiect of the charming scener}' on the heights of Belleville, is much increased by the distant objects which terminate some parts of the view. To the east, the high and gloomy towers of Vincennes rise over the beautiful woods with which the sides of the hill are adorned ; and give an air of solemnity to the scene, arising from the remembrance of the tragic events of which it was the theatre. Tc the sovtth, the domes and spires of Paris can occasionally be discovered through the open- ings of the wood with which the foreground is enriched, and present the capital at that pleasing distance, when the minuter parts of the buildings are concealed, when its promi- nent features alone are displa)-ed, and the whole is softened by the obscure light which distance throws over the objects of nature. To an English mind, the eff"ect of the whole is infinitely increased, by the animating asso- ciations with which this scenery is connected, — by the remembrance of the mighty struggle between freedom and slavery, which was here terminated; — of the heroic deeds which were here performed, and the unequalled magnani- mity which was here displayed. It was here that the expiring efl"orts of military despotism were overthrown — that the armies of Russia stood triumphant over the power of France, and nobly avenged the ashes of their own ca- pital, by sparing that of their prostrate enemy At this time the traces of the recent strug- gle were visibly imprinted on the villages and woods with which the hill is covered. The marks of blood were still to be discerned on the chaussee which leads through the village of Pantin; the elm trees which line the road were cut asunder or bored through with can- non shot, and their stems riddled in many parts, with the incessant fire of the grape shot. The houses in La Villette, Belleville, and Pantin, were covered with the marlcs of musket shot; the windows of manj were shattered, or wholly THE LOUVRE IN 1814. 109 tstroyed, and the interior of the rooms broken r the balls which seemed to have pierced 'ery part of the building. So thickly were e houses in some places covered with these arks, that it appeared almost incredible how ly one could have escaped from so destruc- /e a fire. Even the beautiful gardens with hich the slope of the heights are adorned, id the inmost recesses of the wood of Ro- ainville, bore, throughout, the marks of the ;sperate struggles which they had lately wit- ;ssed, and exhibited the symptoms of frac- re or destruction in the midst of the luxu- ance of natural beauty; — yet, though they id so recently been the scene of mortal com- it ; though the ashes of the dead lay yet in ;aps on different parts of the field of battle, le prolific powers of nature were undecayed : le vines clustei'ed round the broken fragments : the instruments of war, — the corn spread a veeter green over the fields, which were yet et with human blood, and the trees waved ith renovated beauty over the uncoffined re- tains of the departed brave; emblematic of le decay of man, and of the immortality of ature. The French have often been accused of sel- shness, and the indifference which they often lanifest to the fate of their relations affords 10 much reason to believe that the social af- ictions have little permanent influence on their linds. They exhibit, however, in misfortunes fa different kind — in calamities which really ress upon their own enjoyments of life — the ime gayety of heart, and the same undisturbed ijuanimity of disposition. That gayety in misfortune, which is so painful to every ob- server, when it is to be found in the midst of family distress, becomes delightful when it exists under the deprivation of the selfish gra- tification to which the individual had been ac- customed. Both here, and in other parts of France, where the houses of the peasants had been wholly destroyed by the allied armies, there was much to admire in the ciiiinnimity of mind with which these poor people bore the loss of all their property. For au extent of thirty miles in one direction, towards the north of Champagne, every house near the great road had been burned or pillaged for the firewood which it contained, both by the French and allied armies, and the people were every where compelled to sleep in the open air. The men were everywhere rebuilding their fallen walls, with a cheerfulness which never would have existed in England under similar circum- stances ; and the little children laboured in the gardens during the da}', and slept under the vines at night, Avithout exhibiting any signs of distress for their disconsolate situation. In many places we saw groups of these little children in the midst of the ruined houses, or under the shattered trees, playing with the musket shot, or trying to roll the cannon balls by which the destruction of their dwellings had been effected: — exhibiting a picture of youthful joy and native innocence, while sport ing with the instruments of human destruc tion, which the genius of Sir Joshua Reynolds would have moulded into the expression of pathetic feeling, or employed as the means of moral improvement. THE LOUVEE IN 1814/ To those who have had the good fortune to ee the pictures and statues which are pre- erved in the Louvre, all description of these rorks must appear superfluous ; and to those iho have not had this good fortune, such an ttempt could convey no adequate idea of the bjects which are described. There is nothing (lore uninteresting than the catalogue of pic- ures which areto be found in the works of many aodern travellers ; nor any thing in general aore ridiculous than the i-avings of admira- ion with which this catalogue is described, .nd with which the reader in general is little lisposed to sympathize. Without attempting, herefore, to enumerate the great works which ire there to be met with, it is better to aim at lothing but the delineation of the f^cncral rha- ■ader by which the different schools of paini- ng are distinguished, and the great features n which they all differ from the sculpture of mcient times. •Written during a resiflence at Paris in May and fune, 1814, and piiblislied in "Travels in France," in 1814-15, to the first volume of which the author con- ributed a few chapters. For an attempt of this kind, the Louvre pre- sents singular advantages, from the unparal- leled collection of paintings of every school and description which are there to be met with, and the facility with which you can there trace the progress of the art from its first beginning to the period of its greatest perfection. And it is in this view that the collection of these works into one museum, however much to be deplored as the work of unprincipled ambition, and however much it may have diminished the impression which particular objects, from the influence of asso- elation, produced in their native place, is yet calculated to produce the greatest of all im- provements in the progress of the nrl; hV divesting particular schools and P;"-"'^-"'''' works of the unbounded influence winch th« effect of early association, or the pr.-judiop.s oi national feeling, have given then '""'•-■";''": ginal situation, and placing ihcm "••"■'■^ •''f'' real nature is to be judged of hv a more ex- tended circle, and subjected to the examination of more impartial sentiments. „j^,,,_ The first hall of the Louvre, in the oiclur* no ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS, pallcry, is filled with paintings of the French M-liooi. Tiie principal artists whose works nrf here exhibited, arc Le IJrun, Gaspar and Ntcolas r. of this great master, through the me- dniiii of the engraved copies, and above all, in the unrivalled works of Woollct, the sight f>f the original pictures must, perhaps at all times, create a feeling of disappointment. Th; guration itself a chaos of genius rather than model of ideal beauty; nor will it be deemed a presumptuous excess, if sufch sentiments are expressed in regard to this great author, since it is from his own works alone that we havel derived the means of appreciating his imper- fections. It is in his smaller pieces that the genuine! character of Raphael's paintings is to be seeaj — in the figure of St. Michael subduing the demon ; in the beautiful tenderness of the Virgin and Child; in the unbroken harmonj of the Holy Family ; in the wildness andl piety of the infant St. John; — scenes, in whichf all the objects of the picture combine for thel preservation of one uniform character, andl wher'^ the native fineness of his mind appears! undisturbed by the display of temporary pas- sion, or the painful distraction of varied suf-^ fcring. There are no pictures of the English school in llie Louvre, for the arms of France nevei prevailed in our island. From the splendid^ character, however, which it early assumed under the distinguished guidance of Sir Jo.shuaJ Reynolds, and from the high and philosophicalj principles which he at first laid down for the! THE LOUVRE m 1814. 113 government of the art, there is every reason to believe that it ultimately will rivalthe cele- brity of foreign genius: And it is in this view that the continuance of the gallery of the Louvre, in its present situation, is principally to be wished by the English nation— that the English artists may possess so near their own country so great a school for composition and design; that the imperfections of foreign schools may enlighten the views of English genius; and that the conquests of the French arms, by transferring the remains of ancient taste to these northern shores, may throw over its rising art that splendour which'has hitherto been confined to the regions of the sun. The great object, therefore, of all the modern schools of historical painting, seems to have I been the delineation of an affecting scene or in- teresling occurrence; they have endeavoured to tell a story by the variety of incidents in a single picture ; and seized, for the most part, the moment when passion was at its greatest I height, or suffering appeared in its most ex- ^ cruciating form. The general character, ac- cording]}^ of the school, is the expression of passion or violent suffering; and in the pro- secution of this object, they have endeavoured to exhibit it under all its aspects, and display j all the eflects which it could possibly produce { on the human form, by the different figures I which they have introduced. While this is I the general character of the whole, there are f of course numerous exceptions; and many I of its greatest painters seem, in the representa- i tion of single figures, or in the composition I; cf smaller groups, to have had in view the ex- ^pression of less turbulent afl^ections; to have aimed at the display of settled emotion or per- manent feeling, and to have excluded eveiy thing from their composition which was not in unison with this predominant expression. The Sculptm-e Gallery, which contains above two hundred remains of ancient statuary, marks in the most decided manner the different ob- jects to which this noble art was applied in ancient times. Unlike the paintings of modern Europe, their figures are almost uniformly at rest; they exclude passion or violent suffering from their design ; and the moment which they select is not that in which a particular or tran- sient emotion may be displayed, but in which the settled character of mind may be expressed. With the two exceptions of the Laocoon and the fighting Gladiator, there are none of the statues in the Louvre which are not the repre- sentation of the human figure in a state of repose ; and the expression which the finest possess, is invariably that permanent expres- sion which has resulted from the habitual frame and character of mind. Their figures seem to belong to a higher class of beings than that in which we are placed ; they indicate a state in which passion, anxiety, and emotion are no more; and where the unruflled repose of mind has moulded the features into the per- fect expression of the mental character. Even the countenance of the Venus de Medicis, the most beautiful which it has ever entered into the mind of man to conceive, and of which no copy gives the slightest idea, bears no trace of emotion, and none of the marks of human 8 feehrg; it is the settled expression of celestial beauty, and even the smile on her lip is not the fleeting smile of temporary joy, but the lastmg expression of that heavenly fceline which sees in all around it the grace and love- liness which belongs to itself alone. It ap- proaches nearer to that character which some- times marks the countenance of female beauty when death has stilled the passions of the world ; but it is not the cold expression of pasi character which survives the period of mortal dissolution ; it is the living expression of pre- sent existence, radiant with the beams of im- mortal life, and breathing the air of eternal happiness. The paintings of Raphael convey the mosi perfect idea of earthly beauty ; and they de- note the expression of all that is finest and most elevated in the character of the female mind. But there is a "human meaning in their eye," and they bear the marks of that anxiety and tenderness which belong to the relations of present existence. The Venus displays the same beauty, freed from the cares which existence has produced ; and her lifeless eye-balls gaze upon the multitude which sur- round her, as on a scene fraught only with the expression of universal jo}-. In another view, the Apollo and the Venus appear to have been intended by the genius of antiquity, as expressive of the character of mind which distinguishes the difl!erent sexes ; and in the expression of this character, they have exhausted all which it is possible for human imagination to produce upon the sub- ject. The commanding air, and advanced step of the Apollo, exhibit man in his noblest aspect, as triumphing over the evils of physical na- ture, and restraining the energy of his dispo- sition, in the consciousness of resistless power: the averted eye, and retiring grace of the Ve- nus, are expressive of the modesty, gentleness and submission, wliich form the most beauti- ful features oiihe female character. Not en'ial, as their sex not nqual seemed, For valour He, and contemplation, formed. For l)«aiity Slie, and sweet allractive grace, He for God onl}', She for God in Him. These words were said of our first parents by our greatest poet, after the influence of a pure religion had developed the real nature of the female character, ami determined tlie place which woman was to hold in the scale of na ture ; but the idea had been expressed in a still finer manner two thousand years before, by the sculptors of antiquity; and amidst all the degradation of ancient manners, the pro- phetic genius of Grecian taste contemplated that ideal perfection in the character of the sexes, which was destined to form the boun- dary of human progress in the remotest ages of human improvement. The Apollo strikes a stranger with all it,s grandeur on the first aspect; subs(V|U'Mit exa- mination can add nothing to the furcf of the impression which is then received. The V e- nus produces at first less effect, but gams upon the mind at every renewal, till it rivets the affections even more than the greatness of its unequalled rival. The Dying Gladiator is perhaps, artcr the Ill ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. (WO which liave hcen mentioned, (he finest ' stroy. The poor Russian soldier, whose know- statue which Ihc Louvre contains. The mo ment clioscn is finely adapted for the expres- sion of ideal beauty, from a subject connected with painful ideas. It is not the moment of cnersy or slru'^'^linc:, when the frame is con- vulsed \vith the exertion it is maliinT, or the countenance is deformed by the tumult of pas- sion ; it is the moment of jxpiring nature, wlien the fijiure is relaxed by the weakness of decay, and the mind is softened by the approach of death ; when the ferocity of combat is for- gotten in the extinction of the interest which it had excited, when every unsocial passion is stilled by the weakness of exhausted nature, and the mind, in the last moments of life, is fraught with finer feelings than had belonged to the character of previous existence. It is a moment similar to that in which Tasso has so beautifully described the change in Clorin- da's mind, after she had been mortally wound- ed by the hand of Tancred, hut in which he was enaliled to give her the inspiration of a greater faith, and the charity of a more gentle religion : — Amico h'ai vinto : io te perdon. Pordona Tu .inrora, al corpo no rlu; nulla pave All' alma si : deli per Iri profja ; e dona nattesiiio a nio, cirosiii iiiia colpa lave; In qiicste voci lancuiile rij^uona Un non so clic di tlebilo e soave Ch' al cor pli scende, ed osni sdeeno ainmorza, Egli ocelli a lagriniar gl' invoglia e sforza. The statues of antiquity were addressed to the multitude of the people ; they were intended to awaken the devotion of all classes of citi- zens — to be felt and judged by all mankind. They are free, therefore, from all the peculiar- ities of national taste; they are purified from all the peculiarities of local circumstances ; they have been rescued from that miserable degradation to which art is uniformly exposed, by taste being confined to a limited society. They have assumed, in consequence, that ge- neral character, which might suit the universal feelings of our nature, and that pei'manent ex- pression which might speak to the heart of men through every succeeding age. The ad- miration, accordingly, for those works of art has been undiminished by the lapse of time; they excite the same feelings at the present time, as when tl.sy came fresh from the hand of the Grecian artist, and are regarded by all nations with the same veneration on the banks of the Seine, as when they sanctified the temples of Athens, or adorned the gardens of Rome. Even the nidest nations seem to have felt the force of this impression. The Hungarians and the Cossacks, during the slay of the allied armies in Paris, ignorant of the name or the celebrity of those works of art, seemed yet to take a delight in the survey of the statues cf antiquity, and in passing through the long line of marbled greatness which the Louvre presents, stopt involuntarily at the sight of the Venus, or clustered round the foot of the pe- destal of the Apollo; — indirating thus, in the expression of unafi'eeled fi'eliiiL', the fiirc3 of ledge of art was limited to the crucifix which he had borne in his bosom from his native land, still felt the power of ancient beauty, and in the spirit of the Athenians, who erected an altar to the UnknoAvn God, did homage in si- lence to that xuiknown spirit wiiich had touched a new chord in his untutored heart. The character of art in every country ap- pears to have been determined by the disposi- tion of the people to whom it was addressed, and the object of its composition to have va- ried with the purpose it was called on to fulfil. The Grecian statues Avcre designed to excite the devotion of a cultivated people; to imbody their conceptions of divine perfection ; to real- ize the expression of that character of mind which they imputed to the deities whose tem- ples they Avere to adorn : it was grace, or strength, or majesty, or youthful power, which they were to represent by the figures of Venus, of Hercules, of Jupiter, or of Apollo. Their artists accordingly were led to aim at the ex- pression of general characler : to exclude pas- sion, or emotion, or suffering, from their de- sign, and represent their figures in that state of repose where the permanent expression of mind ought to be displayed. It is perhaps in this circumstance that is to be found the cause both of the peculiarity and the excellence of the Grecian statuary. The Italian painters were early required to efliect a different object. Their pictures were destined to represent the sufferings of nature ; to display the persecution or death of our Saviour, the anguish of the Holy Famil)', the hery)ibm of martyrs, the resignation of devotion. In the infancy of the arts, accordinglj% they were led to study the expression of passion, of suff^ering, and emotion; to aim at rousing the pity, or exciting the sympathy of the spectators ; and to endeavour to characterize their paint- ings by the representation of temporary pas- sion, not the expression of permanent charac- ter. Those beautiful pictures in which a dif- ferent object seems to have been followed — in which the expression is that of permanent emotion, not transient passion, while they cap- tivate our admiration, seem to be exceptions from the general design, and to have been suggested by the peculiar nature of the subject represented, or a particular firmness of mind in the artist. In these causes we may perhaps discern the origin of the peculiar character of the Italian school. In the French school, the character and manners of the people seem to have carried this peculiarity to a still greater length. Their character led them to seek in every thing for stage effect; to admire the most extravagant and violent representations, and to value the efforts of art, not in proportion to their imita- tion of the qualities of nature, but in propor- tion to their resemblance to those artificial qualities on which their admiration was fiuinded. The vehemence of their manner, on the most ordinary occasions, rendered the most extravagant gestures requisite for the that genuine taste for the beauty of nature, I display of real passion; and their drama ac« which all the rudeness of savage manners, and ' cordingly exhibits a mixture of dignity of sen* nil the ferocity of war had not been able to de- j timent, with violence of gesture, beyond mea- THE LOUVRE IN 1814. 116 sore surprising to a foreign spectator. The same disposition of the people has influenced the character of their historical painting ; and it is to be remembered, that the French school of painting succeeded the establishment of the French drama. It is hence that they have ge- nerally selected the moment of theatrical effect —the moment of phrenzied passion, or unpa- ralleled exertion, and that their composition is distinguished by so many striking contrasts, and so laboured a display of momentary effect. The Flemish or Dutch school of painting was neither addressed to the devotional nor the theatrical feelings of mankind ; it was neither intended to awaken the sympathy of religious pity, nor excite the admiration of artificial dispositions — it was addressed to wealthy men of vulgar capacities, capable of appreciating only the merit of minute detail, or the faithfulness of exact imitation. It is hence that their painting possesses excellencies and defects of so peculiar a description ; that they have carried the minuteness of finishing to so unparalleled a degree of perfection ; that the brilliancy of their lights has thrown a splendour over the vulgarity of their subjects, and that they are in general so utterly destitute of all the refinement and sentiment which sprung from the devotional feelings of the Italian people. The subjects which the Dutch painters chose were subjects of low humour, calcu- lated to amuse a rich and uncultivated people: the subjects of the French school were heroic adventure, suited to the theatrical taste of a more elevated society: the subjects of the Italian school were the incidents of sacred history, suited to the devotional feelings of a religious people. In all, the subjects to which painting was applied, and the character of the art itself, was determined by the peculiar cir- cumstances or disposition of the people to whom it was addressed : so that, in these in- stances, there has really happened what Mr. Addison stated should ever be the case, that "the taste should not conform to the art, lut the art to the taste." The object of statuarj' should ever be the same to which it was always confined by the ancients, viz. the representation of characteti. The very materials on which the sciilptor has to operate, render his art unfit for the expres- sion either of emotion or passion ; and the figure, when finished, can bear none of the marks by which they are to be distinguished. It is a figure of cold, and pale, and lifeless marble, without the varied colour which emo- tion produces, or the living eye which passion animates. The eye is the feature which is expressive of present emotion ; it is it which varies with all the changes which the mind undei'goes ; it is it which marks the difference between joy and sorrow, between love and hatred, between pleasure and pain, between life and death. But the eye, with all the end- less expressions which it bears, is lost to the sculptor; its gaze must ever be cold and life- less to him; its fire is quenched in the stillness of the tomb. A statue, therefore, can never be expressive of living emotion ; it can never ex- press those transient feelings which mark the play of the living mind It is an abstractioE of character which has no relation to present existence; a shadow in which all the perma nent features of the mind are expressed, but none of the passions of the mind are shown : like the figures of snow, which the magic of Okba formed to charm the solitude of Leila's dwelling,.rit bears the character of the human form, but melts at the warmth of human feeling. While such is the object to which statuary would appear to be destined, painting embraces a wider range, and is capable of more varied expression : it is expressive of the living form ; it paints the eye and opens the view of the present mind ; it imitates all the fleeting changes which constitute the signs of present emotion. It is not, therefore, an abstraction of character which the painter is to represent ; not an ideal form, expressive only of the qualities of per- manent character ; but an actual being, alive to the impressions of present existence, and bound by the ties of present affection. It is in the delineation of these affections, therefore, that the power of the painter principally con sists ; in the representation, not of simple cha- racter, but of character influenced or subdued by emotion. It is the representation of the joy of youth, or the repose of age ; of the sorrow of innocence, or the penitence of guilt; of the tenderness of parental affection, or the gra- titude of filial love. In these, and a thousand other instances, the expression of the emotion constitutes the beauty of the picture ; it is that which gives the tone to the character which it is to bear; it is that which strikes the chord which vibrates in every human heart. The object of the painter, therefore, is the ex- pression of EMOTiox, of that emotion which is blended with the character of the mind which feels, and gives to that character the interest which belongs to the events of present existence. The object of the painter being the repre- sentation of emotion in all the varied situations which life produces, it follows, that every thing in his picture should be in unison with the predominant expression which he wishes it to bear ; that the composition should be as sim- ple as is consistent with the development of this expression ; and the colouring, such as accords with the character by which this emo- tion is distinguished. It is here that the genius of the artist is principally to be displayed, in the selection of such figures as suit the general impression which the whole is to produce; • and the choice of such a tone of colouring, as harmonizes with the feeling of mind which it is his object to produce. The distraction of va ried colours — the confusion of difterent figures — the contrast of opposite expressions, complete- ly destroy the effect of the composition ; they fix the mind to the observation of what is par- ticular in the separate parts, and prevent that uniform and general emotion which arises from the perception of one uniform expression in all the parts of which it is composed. It is in this very perception, however, that the sourCB of the beauty is to be found ; it i;i in the unde- fined feeling to which it gives rise, that the delight of the emotion of taste consists. Like the harmony of sounds in musical composi* 116 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. don, it produces an effect, of Avhich we are unable to give any account; but vhich we feci to be instantly destroyed by the jarrinj;^ sound of a different note, or the discordant effect of a foreign expression. It is in the ne- glect of this great principle that the defect of many of the first pictures of modern times is to be found — in the confused multitude of un- necessary figures — in the contradictory ex- pression of separate parts — in the distracting brilliancy of gorgeous colours : in the laboured displaj', in short, of the power of the artist, and the utter dereliction of the object of the art. The great secret, on the other hand, of the beauty of the most exquisite specimens of mo- dern art, lies in the i^impUcity of expression which they bear, in their production of one uniform emotion, from all the parts of one harmonious composition. For the production of this unity of emotion the surest means will be found to consist in the selection of as feiv figures as is consistent with the development of the characteristic expression of the com- position ; and it is, perhaps, to this circum- stance, that we are to impute the imequalled charm which belongs to the pictures of single figures, or small groups, in which a single ex- pression is alone attempted. Both painting and sculpture are wholly unfit for the representation of passiox, as EXPRESSED BT MOTION ; and that to attempt to delineate it, necessarily injures the effect of the composition. Neither, it is clear, can ex- press actual motion: they should not attempt, therefore, to represent those passions of the mind which motion alone is adequate to ex- press. The attempt to delineate violent passion, accordingly, uniformly produces a painful or a ridiculous effect: it does not even convey any conception of the passion itself, because its character is not known by the expression of any single moment, but by the rapid changes Avhich result from the per- turbed state into which the mind is thrown. It is hence that passion seems so ridiculous when seen at a distance, or without the cause of its existence being known: and it is hence, that if a human figure were petrified in any of the stages of passion it would have so painful or insane an appearance. As painting, therefore, cannot exhibit the rapid changes in which the real expression of passion con- sists, it should not attempt its delineation at all. Its real object is, the expression of emotion, ' i)f that more settled state of the human mind whoa the changes of passion are gone — when the countenance is moulded into the expre* sion of permanent feeling, and the existence of this feeling is marked by the permanent expression which the features have assumed. The greatest artists of ancient and modem times, accordingly, have selected, even in the representation of violent exertion, that mo- ment of temporary repose, when a perraanen' expression is given to the figure. Even the LaocOon is not in a state of actual exertion : it is represented in that moment when the last effort has been made ; when straining against an invincible power has given to the figure the aspect at last of momentary repose ; and when despair has placed its settled mark on the expression of the countenance. The fight- ing Gladiator is not in a state of present acti- vity, but in that moment when he is preparing his mind for the future and final contest, and when, in this deep concentration of his powers, the pause which the genius of the artist has given, expresses more distinctly to the eye of the spectator the determined cha- racter of the combatant, than all that the struggle or agony of the combat itself could afterwards display. The Grecian statues in the Louvre may be considered as the most perfect works of human genius, and every one must feel those higher conceptions of human form, and of human nature, which the taste of ancient sta- tuary had formed. It is not in the moment of action that it has represented man, but in the moment after action, when the tumult of passion has ceased, and all that is great or dignified in moral nature remains. It is not Hercules in the moment of earthly combat, when every muscle Avas swollen with the strength he was exerting; but Hercules, in the moment of transformation into a nobler- being, when the exertion of mortality has passed, and his powers seem to repose in the tranquillity of heaven ; not Apollo, v.hen straining his youthful strength in drawing the boAv; but Apollo, when the weapon was dis- charged, watching, with unexulting eye, its resistless course, and serene in the enjo)^- ment of immortal power. And inspired by these mighty ex*amples, it is not St. Michael when struggling with the demon, and marring the beauty of angelic form by the violence of earthly passion, that Raphael represents; but St. Michael, in the moment of unrufiled tri- umph, restraining the might of almighty power, and radiant with the beams of eleraal mercy. TYROL. 117 tyeol; It is a common observation, that the cha- racter of a people is in a great measure influ- enced by their local situation, and the nature of the scenery in which they are placed ; and it is impossible to visit the Tyrol without being convinced of the truth of tJie remark. The entrance of the mountain region is marked by as great a diversity in the aspect and man- ners of the population, as in the external objects with which they are surrounded ; nor is the transition, from the level plain of Lom- bardy to the rugged precipices of the Alps, greater than from the squalid crouching ap- pearance of the Italian peasant to the mar- tial air of the free-born mountaineer. This transition is so remarkable, that it attracts the attention of the most superficial observer. In travelling over the states of the north of Italy, he meets everywhere Avith the symptoms of poverty, meanness, and abject depression. The beautiful slopes which de- scend from the Alps, clothed with all that is beautiful and luxuriant in nature, are inha- bited for the most part by an indigent and squalid population, among whom you seek in vain for any share of that bounty with which Providence 'has blessed their country. The rich plains of Lombardy are cultivated by a peasantry whose condition is hardly superior to that of the Irish cottager ; and while fhe effeminate proprietors of the soil waste their days in inglorious indolence at Milan and Verona, their unfortunate tenantry are exposed to the merciless rapacity of bai- liffs and stewards, intent only upon augment- ing the fortunes of their absent superiors. In towns, the symptoms of general distress are, if possible, still more apparent. While the opera and the Corso are crowded with splen- did equipages, the lower classes of the people are involved in hopeless indigence: — The churches and public streets are crowded with -beggars, whose wretched appearance marks but too truly the i-eality cf the distress of which they complain — while their abject and crouching manner indicates the entire politi- cal degradation to which they have so long been subjected. At Venice, in particular, the total stagnation of employment, and the misery of the people, strikes a stranger the more forcibly from the contrast which they afford to the unrivalled splendour of her edifices, and the glorious recollections with which her history is filled. As he admires the gorgeous magnificence of the piazza St. Marco, or winds through the noble palaces that still rise with tmdecaying beauty from the waters of the Adriatic, he no longer wonders at the astonish- ment with which the stern crusaders of the north gazeii at her marble piles, and feels the rapture of the Roman emperor, when he ap- proached, "where Venice sat in state throned on her hundred isles ;" but in the mean and * Blackwood's Magazine, Sept. 1819. Written from notes made during a tour in Tyre I in the preceding year. pusillanimous race by which they are now inhabited, he looks in vain for the descendants of those great men who leapt from their gallies on the towers of Constantinople, and stood forth as the bulwark of Christendom against the Ottoman power; and still less, when he surveys the miserable population with which he is surrounded, can he go back in imagination to those days of liberty and valour, when " Venice once was dear. The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy." From such scenes of national distress, and from the melancholy spectacle of despotic power ruling in the abode of ancient freedom, it is with delight that the traveller enters the fastnesses of the Alps, where liberty has im- printed itself in indelible characters on the character and manners of the people. In every part of the Tyrol the bold and martial air of the peasantry, their athletic form and fearless eye, bespeak the freedom and inde- pendence which they have enjoyed. In most instances the people go armed; and during the summer and autumn they wear a musket hung over their shoulders, or some other of- fensive weapon. Universally they possess oflensive weapons and are trained early to the use of them, both by the expeditions in search of game, of which they are passionately fond — and by the annual duty of serving in the trained bands, to which every man capable of bearing arms is, without exception, subjected. It was in consequence of this circumstance, in a great measure, that they were able to make so vigorous a resistance, with so little preparation, to the French invasion ; and it is to the same cause that is chiefly to be ascribed that intrepid and martial air by which they are distinguished from almost every other peasant- ry in Europe. Their dress is singularly calculated to add to this impression. That of the men consists, for the most part, of a broad-brimmed hat, ornamented by a feather; a jacket tight to the shape, wath a broad girdle, richly ornamented, fastened in front by a large buckle of costly workmanship; black leather breeches ana gaiters, supported over the shoulders by two broad bands, generally of scarlet or blue, which are joined in front by a cross belt of the same colour. They frequently wear pis- tols in their girdle, and have either a rifle or cloak slung over their shoulders. The colours of the dresses vary in the different parts of the country, as they do in the cantons of Swit- zerland; but they are always of bnlhani colours, and ornamented, particularly round the breast, with a degree of richness which appears extraordinary in the labouring classes of the community. Their girdles and clasps, with the other more costly parts of their cloth- ing, are handed down from generation to generation, and worn on Sundays and festi- 118 ALISON'S MISCETXANEOUS ESSAYS. vals, with scrupulous care, by the great-graiul- sons of those by whom they were originally purchased. The dress of the women is grotesque and singular in the extreme. Generally speaking, the waists arc worn long, and the petticoats exceedingly short; and the colours of their clothes are as bright and various as those of the men. To persons habituated however to the easy and flowing attire of our own coun- trywomen, t>.? form and style of this ciress appears particularly unbecoming; nor can we altogether divest ourselves of those ideas of ridicule which we are accustomed to attach to such antiquated forms, both on the stage and in the pictures of the last generation. Among the peasant girls, you often meet with much beauty; but, for the most part, the women of the Tyrol are not nearly so striking as the men; an observation which seems applicable to most mountainous countries, and to none more than to the West Highlands of Scotland. It is of more importance to observe thai t'l" Tyrolese peasantry are everywhere courteous and pleasing in their demeanor, both towards strangers and their own countr3'men. In this respect, their manners have sometimes been misrepresented. If a traveller addresses them in a style of insolence or reproach, which is too often used towards the lower orders in France or Italy, he will in all probability meet- with a repulse, and if the insult is carried further, he may, perhaps, have cause permanently to re- pent the indiscretion of his language. For the Tyrolese are a free people; and though sub- ject to a despotic government, their own state preserves its liberty as entire as if it acknow- ledged no superior to its own authority. The peasantry too are of a keen and enthusiastic temper; grateful to the last degree for kind- ness or condescension, but feelingly alive on the other hand to any thing like contempt or derision in the manner of their superiors. Dwelling too in a country Avhere all are equal, and where few noble families or great proprie- tors are to be found, they are little accustomed to brook insults of any kind, or to submit to language from strangers which they would not tolerate from their own coimtrymen. A similar temper of mind may be observed among the Scotch Highlanders; it has been noticed in the mountains of Ncpaul and Cabul, and has long characterized the Arabian tribes ; and indeed it belongs generally to all classes of the people in those situations where the debasing effects of the progress of Avealth, and the division of labour have not been felt, and where, from whatever causes, the individuals in the lower ranks of life are called into active and strenuous exertion, and compelled to act for themselves in the conduct of life. If a stranger, however, behaves towards the Tyrolese peasantry with the ordinary courtesy with which an Englishman is accustomed to address the people of his own country, there is no part of the world in which he will meet with a more cordial reception, or where he will find a more affectionate or grateful return for the smallest acts of kindness. Among these untutored people, the gratitude for any good dred on the part of their superiors, is not, as in more civilized states, the result of any habitual awe for their rank, or of any selfish considera- tion of the advantage to be derived from culti- vating their good will. It is the spontane- ous effusion of benevolent feeling, of feeling springing from therm corrupted dictates of their hearts, and enhanced by the feudal attachment with which they naturally are inclined to re- gard those in a higher rank than themselves. Though the Tyrolese are entirely free, and though the emperor possesses but a nominal sovereignty over them, yet the Avarm feelings of feudal fidelity have nowhere maintained their place so inviolate as among their moun- tains; and this feeling of feudal respect and affection is extended by them to the higher classes, whenever they behave towards them with any thing like kindness or gentleness of manners. It has arisen from the peculiar situation of their country, in which there are few of the higher orders, Avhere the peasantry possess almost the entire land of which it conP!5-ts, and w'l^r?, at the same time, the bonds of feudal attachment have been preserved with scrupulous care, for political reasons, by their indulgent government, that the peasantry have united the independence and pride of re- publican states with the devoted and romantic fidelity to their sovereign, which characterizes the inhabitants of monarchical realms. Like the peasants of Switzerland, they regard them- selves as composing the state, and would dis- dain to crouch before any other power. Like the Highlanders of Scotland, they are actuated by the Avarmest and most enthusiastic loyalty towards their sovereign, and like them they have not scrupled on many occasions to ex- pose their lives and fortunes in a doubtful and often hopeless struggle in his cause. From these causes has arisen, that singular mixture of loyalty and independence, of stubbornness and cour4esy, of republican pride and chival- rous fidelity, by which their character is dis- tinguished from that of every other people in Europe. Honesty may be regarded as a leading fea- ture in the character of the Tyrolese, as indeed it is of all the German people. In no situation and under no circumstances is a stranger in danger of being deceived by them. They will, in many instances, sacrifice their own in- terests rather than betray what they consider so sacred a duty as that of preserving inviolate their faith with foreigners. In this respect their conduct aflbrds a very striking contrast to the conduct of the French and Italians, whose rapacity and meanness have long been observed and commented on by every traveller. Yet, amidst all our indignation at that charac- ter, it may well be doubted, Avhether it does not arise naturally and inevitably from the system of {Tovernment to which they have had the* misfortune to be subjected. Honesty is avirtue practised and esteemed among men who have a character io support, and who feel their own importance in the scale of society. Generally it will be found to prevail in proportion to the weight which is attached to individual charac- ter ; that is, to the freedom which the people enjoy. Cheating, on the other hand, is the usual and obvious resource of slaves, of men TYROL. 119 who have never been taught to respect them- selves, and whose personal qualities are en- tirely overlooked by the higher orders of the Etate. If England and Switzerland and the Tyrol had been subjected by any train of un- fortunate events to the same despotism which nas degraded the character of the lower orders in France and Italy, they would probably have had as little reason as their more servile neigh- bours to have prided themselves on the honesty and integrity of their national character. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the character of the Tyrolese, is their uniform PIETY, a feeling which is nowhere so univer- sally diffused as among their sequestered val- leys. The most cursory view of the country is sufficient to demonstrate the strong hold which religion has taken of the minds of the peasantry. Chapels are built almost at every half mile on the principal roads, in which the passenger may perform his devotions, or which may awaken the thoughtless mind to a recol- lection of its religious duties. The rude efforts of art have there been exerted to pourtray the leading events in our Saviour's life; and in- numerable figures, carved in wood, attest, in every part of the country, both the barbarous taste of the people, and the fervour of their religious impressions. Even in the higher parts of the mountains, where hardly any ves- tiges of hunran cultivation are to be found, in the depth of untrodden forests, or on the sum- mit of seemingly inaccessible cliffs, the symbols of devotion are to be found, and the cross rises everywhere amidst the wilderness, as if to mark the triumph of Christianity over the greatest obstacles of nature. Nor is it only in solitudes or deserts that the %'estiges of their devotion are to be found. In the valleys and in the cities it still preserves its ancient sway over the people. On the exterior of most houses the legend of some favourite saint, or the sufferings of some popular martyr, are to be found ; and the poor inhabitant thinks him- self secure from the greater evils of life imder the guardianship of their heavenly aid. In every valley numerous spires are to be seen rising amidst the beauty of the surroiinding scene, and reminding the traveller of the piety of its simple inhabitants. On Sunday the ivholc people flock to church in their neatest and gayest attire ; and so great is the number who thus frequent these places of worship, that it is not unfrequent to see the peasants kneeling on the turf in the church3'ard where mass is performed, from being unable to find a place within its walls. Regularly in the evening prayers are read in every family ; and the traveller who passes through the villages at .the hour of twilight, often sees through their latticed windows the young and the old kneel- ing together round their humble fire, or is warned of his approach to human habitation, by hearing their evening hymns stealing through the silence and solitude of the forest. Nor is their devotion confined to acts of external homage, or the observance of an un- meaning ceremony. Debased as their religion is by the absurdities and errors of the Catholic form of worship, and mixed up as it is with in- numerable legends and visionary tales, it yet preserves enough of the pure spirit of its divine origin to influence, in a great degree, the con- duct of their private lives. The Tyrolese have not yet learned that immorality in private life may be pardoned by the observance of certain ceremonies, or that the profession of faith purchases a dispensation from the rules of obedience. These, the natural and the usual attendants of the Catholic faith in richer states, have not reached their poor and sequestered valleys. The purchase of absolution by money is there almost unknown. In no part of the world are the domestic or conjugal duties more strictly or faithfully observed: and in none do the parish priests exercise a stricter or more conscientious control over the conduct of their flock. Their influence is not weakened, as in a more advanced state of society, by a discordance of religious tenets; nor is the con- sideration due to this sacred function, lost in the homage paid to rank, or opulence, or power. Placed in the midst of a people who acknow- ledge no superiors, and who live almost univer- sally from the produce of their h-tle domains, and strangers alike to the arts of luxury, and the seductions of fashion, the parish-priest is equally removed from temptation himself, and relieved from guarding against the great sources of wickedness in others. He is at once the priest, and the judge of his parish ; the infallible criterion in matters of faith, and the umpire, in the occasional disputes which happen among them. Hence has arisen that re- markable veneration for their spiritual guides, by which the peasantry are distinguished ; and it is to this cause that we are to ascribe the singular fact that their priests were their prin- cipal leaders in the war with France, and that while their nobles almost universally kept back, the people followed with alacrity the call of their pastors, to take up arms in support of the Austrian cause. In one great virtue, the peasants in this country (in common it must be owned with most Catholic states) are particularly worthy of imitation. The virtue of charity, which is too much overlooked in many Protestant kingdoms, but which the Catholic religion so uniformly and sedulously enjoins, is there practised, to the greatest degree, and by all classes of the people. Perhaps there are few countries in which, owing to the absence of manufactures and great towns, poverty ap- pears so rarel}', or in which the great body of the people live so universally in a state of comfort. Yet, whenever wretchedness does ap- pear, it meets with immediate and effectual relief. Nor is their charity confined to actual mendicants, but extends to all whom accident or misfortune has involved in casual distress. Each valley supports its own poor; and the little store of every cottage, like the meal of the Irish cottager, is always open to any one who really requires its assistance. This be- nevolent disposition springs, no doubt, in a great measure from the simple state in which society exists among these remote districts: but it is to be ascribed not less to the efforts of the clerg)', who incessantly enjoin this great Christian dut}% and point it out as the chief means of atoning for past 120 AMSON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESsAVcs. Much as vre may lament the errors of the CaMiolic, aiul clearly as we may see its tcii- dciiCy (at least in its more corrupt forms) to nourish private immorality, and extinguish civil liberty, it is yet impossible to deny, that, in the great duty of Christian charily, which it invariably enjoins, it has atoned for a multi- tude of sins ; and to suspect that amidst the austerity and severit}' of tlic presbytcriaii dis- cipline, we have too much lost sight of the charity of the gospel; and that witii us a pre- tended indignation for the vices which involve so many of the poor in distress, too often serves as a pretext for refusing to minister that relief to which, from whatever cause it has arisen, our Saviour tells us that it is entitled. There is something singularly delightful in the sway which religion thus maintains in these savage and sequestered regions. In ancient times, we are informed these moun- tains were inhabited by the Rhsetians, the fiercest and most barbarous of the tribes, who dwelt in the fastnesses of the mountains, and of whose savage manners Livy has given so striking an account in his description of Hannibal's passage of the Alps. Many Roman legions were impeded in their progress, or thinned of their numbers, by these cruel bar- barians ; and even after they were reduced to ftubjectiou, by the expedition of Drusus, it was still esteemed a service of the utmost danger to leave the high road, or explore the remote re- cesses of the coimtry. Hence the singular fact, almost incredible in modern limes, that even in the da)'S of Plin}'-, several hundred years after the first passage of these mountains by the Roman troops, the source of both the Rhine and the Iser were unknown ; and that the na- turalist of Rome was content to state, a century after the establishment of a Roman station at Sion, that the Rhone took its rise " in the most hidden parts of the earth, in the region of per- petual night, amidst forests for ever inacces- sible to human approach." Hence it is too, that almost all the inscriptions on the votive offerings which have been discovered in the ruins of the temple of Jupiter roininus, at the summit of the great St. Bernard, and many of which come down to a late period in the history of the empire, speak of the gratitude of the pas- sengers for having escaped the exti-aordinary pciiis of the journey. The Roman authors al- ways speak of the Alps with expressions of dis- may and horror, as the scenes of only winter and desolation, and as the abodes of barbarous tribes. "Nivesccsloprope immista:, tectainformiaim- posita rupibus pecora jumenta quetorrida fri- gore homines intonsi elinculli,allimaliainani- maque omnia rigentia gelu cetera visu quam dictu foediora tcrrorem renovarunt."* No at- tempt accordingly appears to have been made by any of the Romans in later times to explore the remoter recesses of the mountains now so familiar to every traveller ; but wiiile the empe- rors constructed magnificent highways across their summits to connect Italy with the northern provinces of the empire, they snlTcrcd the val- leys on cither side to remain in tiieir pristine state of barbarism, and hastened into remoter • Liv. Iib.21. districts to spread the cultivation of which the Alps, M-ith their savage inhabitants, seemed to ihcm incapable. What is it then which has wrought so won- derful a change in the manners, the habits, and the condition of the inhabitants of those desolate regions 1 What is it which has spread cultivation through wastes, deemed in ancient times inaccessible to human improvement, and humanized the manners of a people remarkable only, under the Roman sway, for the ferocity and barbarism of their institutions ? From M-hat cause has it happened that those savage mountaineers, who resisted all the acts of civi- lization by which the Romans established their sway over mankind, and continued, even to the overthrow of the empire, impervious to all the efforts of ancient improvement, should, in later times, have so entirely changed their charac- ter, and have appeared, even from the first dawn of modern civilization, mild and humane in their character and manners'! From whal but from the influence of Reiigiox — of that re- ligion which calmed the savage feelings of the human mind, and spread its beneficial in- fluence among the remotest habitations of men; and which prompted its disciples to leave the luxiu'ies and comforts of southern climates, to diffuse knowledge and humanity through in- hospitable realms, and spread, even amidst the regions of winter and desolation, the light and the blessings of a spiritual faith. Universally^ it has been observed through- out the whole extent of the Alps, that the earliest vestiges of civilization, and the fiirst traces of order and industry which appeared after the overthrow of the Roman empire, Avere to be found in the immediate neighbourhood of the religious establishments; and it is to the unceasing efforts of the clergy during the centuries of barbarism which followed that event, that the judicious historian of Switzer- land ascribes the early civilization and hu- mane disposition ofthe Helvetic tribes.* Placed ' as we are at a distance from the time when this great change was effected, and accustomed to manners in which its influence has long ago been established, we can hardly conceive the difliculties with which the earlier profess- ors of our faith had to struggle in subduing the cruel propensities, and calming the re- vengeful passions, that subsisted among the barbarous tribes who had conquered Europe; nor would we, perhaps, be inclined to credit the accounts of the heroic sacrifices which were then made by numbers of great and good men who devoted themselves to the conver- sion of the Alpine tribes, did not their institu- tions remain to this day as a monument of their virtue ; and did we not still see a number of benevolent men who seclude themselves from the M-orld, and dwell in the regions of perpetual snow, in the hope of rescuing a few individuals from a miserable death. When the traveller on the summit of the St. Bernard reads the warm and touching expressions of gratitude M'ith which the Roman travellers re* corded in the temple of Jupiter their gratitude fi)r having escaped the dangers of the pass, ♦ Planta, vol. i. p. 17, &c. TYROL lai fven in the days of Adrian and the Antonines, and reflects on the perfect safety with which he can now traverse the remotest recesses of the Alps, he will think with thankfulness of the religion by which this wonderful change has been effected, and with veneration of the saint whose name has for a thousand years been affixed to the pass where his influence first reclaimed the people from their barbarous life ; and in crossing the defile of Mount Bren- ner, where the abbej'- of Wilten first offered an asylum to the pilgrim, he will feel, with a late eloquent and amiable writer, how fortunate it is "that religion has penetrated these fast- nesses, impervious to human power, and spread her influence over solitudes where human laws are of no avail ; that where precaution is impos- sible and resistance useless, she spreads her in- visible ffigis over the traveller, and conducts him secure under her protection through all the dangers of his way. When, in such situations, he reflects upon his security, and recollects that these mountains, so savage and so well adapted to the purposes of murderers and banditti, have not, in the memory of man, been stained with human blood, he ought to do justice to the cause, and gratefulh^ acknow- ledge the beneficial influence of religion. Im- pressed with these reflections, he will behold, with indulgence, perhaps even with interest, the crosses which frequently mark the brow of a precipice, and the little chapels hollowed out of the rock where the road is narrowed ; he will consider them as so many pledges of se- curity; and rest assured, that, as long as the pious mountaineer continues to adore the 'Good Shepherd,' and to beg the prayer of the 'afflicted mother,' he will never cease to be- friend the traveller, nor to discharge the duties of hospitality."* It must he admitted, at the same time, that the Tyrolese are in the greatest degree superstitious, and that their devotion, warm and enthusiastic as it is, is frequently mis- placed in the object of its worship. There is probably no country in which the belief in supernatural powers, in the gift of prophecy to particular individuals, and the agency of spiritual beings in human affairs, is more uni- versally established. It forms, indeed, part of their religious creed, and blends in the most singular manner with the legendary tales and romantic adventures which they have attached to the history of their saints. But we would err most egregiously, if we imagined that this superstition with which the whole people are tinged, savours at all of a weak or timid dis- position, or that it is any indication of a de- graded national character. It partakes of the savage character of the scenery in which they dwell, and is ennobled by the generous senti- ments which prevail among the lowest classes of the people. The same men who imagine that they see the crucifix bend its head in the dusk of the evening, and who hear the rattle of arms amid the solitude of the mountains, are fearless of death when it approaches them through the agency of human power. It is a strong feeling of religion, and a disposition to ♦ Eustace, i. 9S. see, in all the events by which they are sur- rounded, the marks of divine protection, which is the foundation oi their superstition; aiid the more strongly that they feel reliance on spi- ritual interposition, the less inclined are thej to sink under the reverses of a tempcrary life. There is a wide distinction between supersti- tion and tlie belief in sorcery or witchcraft. The latter is the growth of weakness and credulity, and prevails most among men of a timid disposition, or among ignorant and bar- barous nations. The former, though it is founded on ignorance, and yields to the ex- perience and knowledge of mankind, yet springs from the noblest principles of our nature, and is allied to every thing by which the history of our species has been dignified in former times. It will not be pretended, that the Grecian states were deficient either in splendour of talents or heroism of conduct, yet superstition, in its grossest form, attached itself to all their thoughts, and influenced alike the measures of their statesmen and the dreams of their philosophers. The Roman writers placed in that very feeling which we would call superstition, the most honourable charac- teristic of their people, and ascribed to it the memorable series of triumphs by which the history of the republic was distinguished. " Nulla inquam republia aut major aut sanctior fuit," says Livy; and it is to their deep sense of religion that Cicero imputes the unparalleled success with which the arms of the republic were attended.* Yet the religious feeling which was so intimately blended with the Roman character, and which guided the actions and formed the minds of the great men who adorned her history, was for the most part little else than that firm reliance on the spccicd interposition of Providence, which is the origin of supersti- tion. The Saracens, during the wars which followed the introduction of the Mohammedan faith, were superstitious to the highest degree, yet with how many brilliant and glorious qua- lities was their character distinguished, when they triumphantly carried the Crescent of Mohammed from the snows of the Himraaleh to the shores of the Atlantic. The crusaders even of the highest rank, believed firmly in the mi- racles and prophecies which were said to have accompanied the march of the Christian army; nor is it perhaps possible to find in history an example of such extraordinary con- sequences as followed the supposed discovery of the Holy Lance in the siege of Antioch; yel who will deny to these great men the praise of heroic enterprise and noble manners 1 Human nature has nowhere appeared in such glorious colours as in the Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso, where the firmness and constancy of the Roman patriot is blended with the courtesy of chivalrous manners, and the ex- alted piety of Christian faith ; yet supersti- tion formed a part of the character of ail his heroes ; the courage of Tancred failed when he heard the voice of Clorinda in the charmed tree ; and the bravest of his comrades trembled when they entered the enchanted forest, wheui * Liv. lib. i. ; Cic. de Off. lib. i. c. U 12S ALISON'S MISCELT ANEOL^ ESSAYS. •*E«ce all hfir He la selva un sunn repente, Che par rimliiimlii) di torreii clio tronio, EM inoriiiiinir iN^;;!! Aiijilii in liii si seiite, E'l piaiito (l"omla, ilio I'ni scogli gciiie." Examples of this kind may teach us, tliat although superstition in the age and among the society in which we live is the mark of a feeble mind, yet that in less enlightened ages or parts of the Avorld, it is the mark only of an ardent and enthiisiastic ..Isposition, such as is tiie foundation of every tiling that is great or generous in character, or elevated and spiritual in feeling. A people, in fact, strongly impressed with religious feeling, and to whom experi- ence has not taught the means by which Pro- vidence acts in human affairs, must be svpcrsli- tious; for it is the universal propensity of un- instructed man, to imagine that a special in- terposition of the Deity is necessary to accom- plish the manifestation of his will, or the ac- complishment of his purposes in human affairs. Nor is there anything impossible or absurd in such a supposition. It might have been, tnat futun; eve;..^ wen to be revealed on par- ticular occasions to mankind, as they were during the days of ancient prophecy, and that the course of human events was to be main- tained by special interpositions of divine power. Experience alone teaches us, that this is not the case ; it alone shows, that the intentions of Providence are carried into effect through the intervention of human agents, and that the laws of the moral world work out their own accomplishment by the voluntary acts of free agents. When we see how difficult it is to make persons even of cultivated under- standing comprehend this subject even in the present age, and with all the experience which former times have furnished, we may cease to wonder at the superstition which prevails among the peasants of the T3'rol; we may believe, that situated as they are, it is the na- tural effusion of a pious spirit untaught by the experience of other ages ; and we may discern, in the extravagancies of their legendary creed, not less than in the sublime piety of Newton, the operation of those common laws by which man is bound to his Creator. The scenery of Tyrol, and of the adjacent provinces of Styria and Carinthia, is singular- ly adapted to nourish romantic and supersti- tious ideas among the peasantry. In every part of the world the grandeur of mountain scenery has been found to be the prolific parent of superstition. It was the mists, and the bine lakes, and the sounding cataracts of Caledonia, which gave birth to the sublime but gloomy dreams of Ossian. The same cause has operated to a still greater degree among the Alps of Tyrol. The sublimity of the objects with which man is there surrounded — the resistless power of the elements which he finds continually in action — the utter insig- nificance of his own species, when compared with the gigantic objects in which he is placed, conspire to produce that distrust of himself, and that disposition to cling to higher powers, which is the foundation of superstitious feel- ing. In cities and in plains, the labour of man effaces in a certain degree these impres- scns ; the works which he has there accumu- lated, come to withdraw the attention from the distant magnificence of nature; while the weakness oi' the individual is forgotten in tho aggregate force of numbers, or in tiie distrac- tions of civilized life. But amidst the solitude of the Alps no such change can take place. The greatest works of man appear there as nothing amidst the stupendous objects of na« ture; the distractions of artificial society are unknown amongst its simple inhabitants; and the individual is left in solitude to receive the im- pressions which the sublime scenery in which he is placed is fitted to produce. Upon minds so circumstanced the changes of external na- ture come to be considered as the immediate work of some invisible power; the shadows that fall in the lakes at sunrise, are interpreted as the indication of the approach of hostile bands — the howl of the winds through th« forests is thought to be the lamentations of the dead, who are expiating their sins — and th«, mists that flit over the summits of the moun- tains, seem to be the distant skirts of vast armies borne in the whirlwind, and treading in the storm. The Gothic ruins with which the Tyrol is filled, contribute in a remarkable manner to keep alive these superstitious feelings. In many of the vall'jys old castles of vast dimen sions are percht.-d on the summit of lofty crags or raise their mouldering towers high on thi* mountains above the aged forests with which they are surrounded. These castles, once tho abode of feudal power, have long since beet abandoned, or have gradually gone to decay, without being actually dismantled by the pro prietors. With all of them the people connec' some romantic or terrible exploit; and the bloody deeds of feudal anarchy are remem- bered with terror by the peasants who dwell in the villages at their feet. Lights are often observed at night in towers which have been uninhabited for centuries ; and bloody figures have been distinctly seen to flit through their deserted halls. The armour which still hangs on the walls in many of the greater castles, has been observed to move, and the plumes to wave, when the Tyrolese army were victo- rious in war. Groans are still heard in the neighbourhood of the dungeons where the vic- tims of feudal tyranny were formerly slain; and the cruel baron, who persecuted his peo- ple in his savage passion for the chase, is often heard to shriek in the forests of the Unterberg, and to howl as he flies from the dogs, whom he had trained to the scent of human blood. Superstitions, too, of a gentler and more holy kind, have arisen from the devout feelings of the people, and the associations connected with jiarticular spots where persons of extraordi- nary sanctity have dwelt. In many of the farthest recesses of the mountains, on the verge of perpetual desolation, hermits in former times fixed their abode ; and the imagination of the peasants still fancies that their spirits hover around the spot where their earthly trials were endured. Shepherds who have jiassed in the gloom of the evening by the cell where the bones of a saint are laid, relate that they dis- tinctly heard his voice as he repeated his tvrol.. 123 svening prayers, and saw his form as he knelt before the crucifix which the piety of succeed- ing ages had erected in his hermitage. The image of many a patron saint has been seen to shed tears, when a reverse has happened to the Tyrolese arms ; and the garlands which are hung round the crosses of the Virgin wither when the hand which raised them has fallen in battle. Peasants who have been driven by a storm to take shelter in the little chapels which are scattered over the country, have seen the crucifix bow its head; and solemn music is heard at the hour of vespers, in the higher chapels of the mountains. The distant pealing of the organ, and the chant of innu- merable voices is there distinctly perceptible ; and the peasant, when returning at night from the chase, often trembles Avhen he beholds fu- nereal processions, clothed in white, marching in silence through the gloom of the forests, or slowly moving on the clouds that float over the summit of the mountains. A country so circumstanced, abounding with every thing that is grand and beautiful in na- tural scenery, filled with Gothic castles, over which i-uin has long ago thrown her softening hand, peopled by the phantoms of an extrava- gant yet sublime superstition, and still inha- bited by a valiant and enthusiastic people, £X it vaaiv Tcvxca noiKiX' tXaiine, ra ciiUvot is-ix^oiVTO. Tcoitf S\ vht' 6'tci TToXviraiiOvos duSpos cv aiiXq Mwpi'ui cs'fiKaaiv dficXySfitvai ya\a XevKfv, 'Al^rixii ncnaKvtat, aKoinvaai Sira dpvwv "Sis "VfiiMoyv (lXaA»jT(5f dva s'Tpariv tvpiv optopci. Oi ynp ndnToyv ticv hfioi $060;, ovS' ta yij/JWf, 'AXXu yXiZaa' IfjijiiKTO' ^roXiicXTiTOt i' eerav avlpci. Iliad iv. 427. t Memoirs of a Cavalier, by Defoe. is ample room," as a late eminent writer* has well observed, " for national exultation at th« names of Cress}-, Poitiers, and Azincour. Sc great was the disparity of numbers upon those famous da3-s, that we cannot, with the French historian, allribute the discomfiture of their hosts merely to mistaken tactics and too im- petuous valour. They yielded rather to the intrepid steadiness in danger, which had al- ready become the characteristic of our English soldiers, and which, during four centuries, has ensured their superiority wherever ignorance or infatuation has not led them into the field. But these victories, and the qualities that se- cured them, must chiefly be ascribed to the freedom of our constitution and the superior condition of the people. Not the nobility of England, not the feudal tenants, won the battles of Cressy and Poitiers, for these were fully matched in the ranks of France, but the yeo- men who drew the boAv Avith strong and steady arms, accustomed to its use in their native fields, and rendered fearless by personal com- petence and civil freedom.f Now, after all that we have heard of the art of war being formed into a regular system, of the soldier being reduced to a mere machine, and of the progress of armies being made the subject of arithmetical calculation ; it is truly consoling to find the discomfiture of the great- est and most disciplined army which the world has ever seen, brought about by the same cause which, in former times, have so often given victory to the cause of freedom ; to find the victories of Naefels and Morgarten renew ed in the triumph of the Tyrolese patriots, ano the ancient cuperiority of the English 3'eomanry asserted, as in the days of Cressy and Azin- cour, on the field of Waterloo. Nor is it per- haps the least remarkable fact of that memo- rable day, that while the French army, like the Trojans of old, animated their courage by in- cessant cries ; the English battalions, like the Greek phalanxes, waited in silence the charge of their enemies : proving thus, in the severest of all trials, that the art of war has made tmj change on the qualities essential in the soldier; and that the determined courage of freemen is still able, as in the daj-s of Marathon and Platosa, to overcome the utmost efforts of mili- tary power. It is interesting to find the same qualities distinguishing the armies of a free people in such distant periods of the world; and it is the fit subject, not merely of national pride, but of universal thankfulness, to disco- ver, that there are qualities in the composition of a great army which it is beyond the power of despotism to command ; and that the utmost eflx)rls of the military art, aided by the strongest incitements to military distinction, cannot produce that steady and unbending valour which springs from the enjoyment of civn LlDKnTT. * Hallam's Middle Agee, i. 74. t Froissart, i.e. 162. FRANCE IN 1S33. 1S5 FRANCE IN m3A%.i,--ii< .7 Obsertatioxs made on the spot by one who has long regarded the political changes of France with interest, may possibly be of ser- vice, in conveying to the public on the other side of the Channel some idea of the present state and future prospects of a nation, avow- edly folk wed as the leader by the liberal party all over t.ie world, in the great work of politi- cal regeneration. Such a sketch, drawn with no feeling of political or national animosity, but with every wish for the present and future happiness of the great people among whom it is composed, may possibly cool many visionary hopes, and extinguish some ardent anticipa- tions ; but it will at least demonstrate what is the result, in the circumstances where it has been most triumphant, of democratic ascend- ency; and prepare the inhabitants of Great Britain for the fate, and the government which awaits them, if they continue to follow the footsteps of the French liberals in the career which has been recently brought, on this side of the channel, to so triumphant a conclusion. Most of the educated inhabitants of Great Britain visited France, during the restoration; many of them at different times. Every one thought he had acquired some idea of the political state and prospects of the country, and was enabled to form some anticipations as to its future destiny. We are now enabled .to say, that most of these views were partial or erroneous. They were so, not so much from defect in the observation of France, as ignorance of the political principles and pas- .sions which were at work amongst its inha- bitants ; from want of experience of the result of democratic convulsions ; from judging of a country over which the wave of revolution had passed, with the ideas drawn from one ■which had expelled its fur}-. We observed France accurately enough; but we did so with English eyes ; we supposed its inhabitants to be actuated by the feelings and interests, and motives, which were then at work among our- selves ; and could form no conception of the new set of principles and desires which are stirred up during the agitation of a revolution. In this respect our powers of observation are now materially improved. We have had some experience during the last three years of de- mocratic convulsion ; we know the passion and desires which are developed by arraying the lower orders against the higher. We have acquired an acquaintance with the signs and marks of i-e volution ary terror. Standing thus on the confines of the two systems ; at the ex- tremity of English liberty, and the entrance of French democracy, we are now peculiarly qualified to form an accurate opinion of the tendency of these opposite principles of go- * Blackwood's Magazine, October and December, 1833. — Written during a residence at Paris, and in the north (jf France, in the autumn of that year. vernment ; we know the landinarks of ths civilization which is receding from the view and have gained some acquaintance with the perils of that which is approaching; and com- bining recent with former experience in our own and the neighbouring country, can fona a tolerably accurate idea of the fate which awaits them and ourselves. The leading circumstance in the present condition of France, which first strikes an English observer, and is the most important feature it exhibits in a political point of view, is the enormous and apparently irresistible power of the central govcrnmoit at Paris over all the rest of France. This must appear rather a singular result after forty years of ardent aspirations after freedom, but neverthe- less nothing is more certain, and it constitutes the great and distinguishing result of the Re- volution. Such has been the centralization of powei by the various democratic assemblies, who, at different times, have ruled the destinies of this great country, that there is hardly a vestige of power or influence now left to the provinces. All the situations of emolument of every de- scription, from the highest to the lowest, in every department and line of life, are in the gift of government. No man, in a situation approaching to that of a gentleman, can rise either in the civil or military career in an)^ part of France, unless he is promoted by the central ofiices at Paris. These are general expressions, which convey no definite idea. A few examples will render the state of the country in this particular more intelligible. The Chamber of Peers, Avho now hold their situations only for life, are appointed by the Crown. The whole army, now four hundred thou- sand strong, is at the disposal of government. All the officers in that great body of course receive their appointment from the War-ofiice at Paris. The navy, no inconsiderable force, is also appointed by the same power. The whole artificers and officers connected with the engineers and artillery, a most nu- merous body in a country so beset with fortifi- cations and fortresses as France, derive their appointments from the central government. The custom-house officers, an immense body, whose huts and stations are set down at short distances all round France, are all no- minated by the central office at Paris. The whole mayors of communes, with their " adjoints," amounting over all France to eighty-eight thousand persons, are appointed by the central government, or the prefects of departments whom they have nominated. The post-olTice, in every department through- out the kingdom, is exclusively filled by the servants of government. I2rt ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. The police, an immense force, having not .ess than eighty thousand employes in constant occupation, and Avhicli extends its iron net over the whole country, are all appointed by the minister at the head of that department. The clergy over the whole country receive their salaries from government, and are ap- pointed by the crown. The whole teachers of youth of every de- scription, in all public or established semina- ries, whether parochial or departmental, are appointed by the minister of public instruc- tion. The management of the roads, bridges, and chaussees, throughout all the kingdom, is in- trusted to persons appointed by the crown. No man can break a stone, or mend a bridge, or repair a pavement, from Calais to Bayonne, nnless he is in the service of government; and all the labourers on the roads have an uniform hat, with the words "Cantonnier," or " Pon- lonnier," upon it, indicating that they are in the service of the state. The post-horses over all France are under the control of the crown. Not only the post- masters, but every postillion from Brest to Marseilles, and Strasburg to Bourdeaux, are nominated by the government. No additional hand can be added in the remotest relay of horses without the authority of the Parisian bureaux. On all the great roads in the north of France there are too few postillions, and travellers are daily detained hours on the road, not because horses are awanting, but because it has not pleased the ministers of the interior to appoint a sufficient number of pos- tillions for the dillerent stations. In the south, the case is the reverse ; the postillions are too numerous, and can hardly live, from the divi- sion of their business among so many hands; but the mandate has gone forth from the Tuileries, and obedience must be the order of the da)^. The whole diligences, stage-coaches, mails, and conveyances of every description which convey travellers by relays of horses in every part of France, must employ the post-horses and postillions appointed at the different sta- tions by the crown. No private individual or company can run a coach with relays with their own horses. They may establish as many coaches as they choose, but they must all be drawn by the royal horses and postillions, if they do not convey the travellers m voiliu-icr with the same horses all the way. This great monopoly was established by an arret of the Directory, 9th December, 1798, which is in these terms ; " Nul autre que les maitres de poste, munis d'une commission speciale, ne pourra efablirde relais particuliers, relayer ou conduire a titre do louage des voyageurs d'un relais a un autre, a peine d'etre contraint de pa)'er par forme d'indcmnite le prix de la course, au profit des maitres de poste et des postilions qui auront 6ti frusfres." The whole firemen throughout France are organized in battalions, and wear a uniform like soldiers, and are appointed by govern- ment. The whole judges, superior and inferior, over the whole kingdom, as well as the prcfels, sous-prefets, procureurs du roi, and in gen^ ral all the legal offices of every description, are appointed by government. The only cxcep tion are the judges du paix, a sort of arbiters and mediators in each canton, to settle the trifling disputes of the peasants, whom they are permitted to name for themselves. The whole officers employed in the collec tion of the revenue, over the whole country, are appointed by the government. They are an extremely numerous body, and add im- mensely to the influence of the central author- ity, from whom all their appointments emanate. It M^ould be tedious to carry this enumera- tion farther. Suffice it to say, that the govern- ment of France has now drawn to itself the whole patronage in every department of busi ness and line of life over the whole country. The army, the navy, the law, the church, the professors and teachers of every description; the revenue, the post-office, the roads, bridges and canals, the post-horses, the postillions, the firemen, the police, the gen-d'armes, the pre- fects, the mayors, the magistrates, constitute so many diflferent branches in which the whole patronage is vested in the central government at Paris, and in which no step can b'^ taken, or thing attempted, without the authority of the minister for that department, or the deputy in the capital. In consequence of this prodi- gious concentration of power and patronage in the public offices of Paris, and the total stripping of every sort of influence from the depart- ment, the habit has become universal in eveiy part of France, of looking to Paris, not only for the initiation in every measure and thought, but for the means of getting on in every line of life. Has a man a son to put into the army or navy, the law, the church, the police, or re- venue ? He finds that he has no chance of success unless he is taken by the hand by the government. Is he anxious to make him a professor, a teacher, or a schoolmaster 1 He is obliged to look to the same quarter lor the means of advancement. Is his ambition li- mited to the humbler situation of a postmaster} a bridge contractor, a courier, or a postillion T He must pay his court to the prefect of the de- partment, in order to obtain a recommendation to the minister of the interior, or the director of bridges and roads. Is he even reduced to earn his bread bj^ breaking stones upon the highM-ays, or paving the streets of the towns? He must receive the wages of government, and must w^ear their livery for his twenty sous a day. Thus in every department and line of life, government patronage is indispensable, and the only way in which success is to be . obtained is by paying court to some person in authority. In a commercial and manufacturing country such as England, many and various means exist of rising to wealth and distinction, inde- pendent of government; and in some the oppo- sition line is the surer passport to eminence of the two. Under the old constitution of England, when political power was vested in the holders of great property, and the great body of the people watched their proceedings with distrust and jealousy, eminence was to be attained in any public profession, as the FRANCE IN 1833. 127 bar or the senate, chief!)- by acquiring the suf- frages of the greater number of the citizens ; and hence the popular independent line was the one which in general led soonest to fame and eminence. Commerce and manufactures opened up a thousand channels of lucrative industry, independent altogether of government support; and many of the most important branches of patronage, great part of the church, and the majority of all establishments for education, were in the hands of corporations or private individuals, often in opposition to, or unconnected with, ministerial infliience. But the reverse of all this obtains in France. There little commerce or manufactures are, comparatively speaking, to be found. With the exception of Paris, Lyons, Bourdeaux, Rouen, and Marseilles, no considerable com- mercial cities exist, and the innumerable chan- nels for private adventure which the colonial possessions and immense trade of Britain open up are unknown. AIL the private establish- ments or corporations vested with patronage in any line, as the church, education, charit)', or the like, were destroyed during the Revolu- tion of 1793, and nothing left but the great and overwhelming power of government, standing the more prominently forward, from the extinc- tion of every rival authority which might compete with its influence. Frona the same cause has arisen a degree of slavish submission, in all the provinces of France, to the will or caprice of the metropo- lis, which is almost incredible, and says Isut little for the independence of thought and cha- racter which has grown up in that coimtry since the schoolmaster has been abroad. From the habit of looking to Paris for directions in every thing, from the making of a king tip the repairing of a bridge, from overturning a dy- nasty to breaking a stone, they have absolutely lost the power of judging for themselves, or taking the initiative in any thing either of the greatest or the smallest moment. This ap- pears, in the most striking manner, in all the political changes which have taken place in the countr}' for the last forty 3'ears. Ever since the bones of old France were broken by the Constituent Assembly: since the parliaments, the provinces, the church, the incorporations, were swept away by their gigantic acts of de- mocratic despotism, the departments have sunk into absolute insignificance, and every thing has been determined b)' the will of the capital, and the acts of the central government at its head. When the Girondists, the illus- trious representatives of the country districts, were proscribed, the most violent feelings of indignation spread through the south and west of France. Sixtj^-five, out of the eighty-four departments, rose in insuri-ection against the despotism of the capital; but the unwonted exertion surpassed their strength, and they soon yielded, without a struggle worth the no- tice of history, to its usurped authority. When Robespierre executed Danton and his adher- ents ; wiien he himself sunk under the stroke of the Thermidorians ; when Napoleon over- threw the national guard of Paris, in October, 1795; when the Directory were expelled by the bayonets of Augereau, on the 18th Fructidor, 1797; when Napoleon seized the reins o- power in November, 1799; when he declared himself emperor, and overturned all ihe prin- ciples of the Revolution in 1S04; when he was vanquished by the allies in 1814; when he re- sumed the helm in 1815; when he was finally dethroned after the battle of Waterloo ; when the revolt of the barricades established a re- volutionary government in the capital; when the suppression of the insurrection at the cloister of St. Merri defeated a similar attempt two years afterwards, the obedient departments were equally ready with their addresses of congratulation, and on every one of these va- rious, contradictory, and inconsistent changes, France submitted at once to the dictatorial power of Paris; and thirty millions of men willingly took the law from the caprices or passions of a few hundred thousands. The subjection of Rome to the Prcctorian guards, or of Turkey to the Janizaries, was never more complete. It was not thus in old France. The greatest and most glorious efforts of her people, in fa- vour of freedom, were made when the capital was in the hands of foreign or domestic ene- mies. The English more than once wrested Paris from their grasp ; but the forces of the south rallied behind the Loire, and at length expelled the cruel invaders from their shores. The forces of the League were long in posses- sion of the capital ; but Henry IV., at the head of the militia of the provinces, at length con- quered its citizens, and Paris received a master from the roots of the Pyrenees. The Revolu- tion of 1789 commenced with the provinces : it was their parliaments, which, under Louis XV. and XVI., spread the spirit of resistance to arbitrary power through the country ; and it was from their exertions, that the unanimous spirit, which compelled the court to convoke the states-general, arose. Now all is changed ; not a murmur, not a complaint against the acts of the capital, is to be heard from Calais to Bayonne ; but the obedient departments are equally ready at the arrival of the mail, or the receipt of the telegraph, to hail with shouts a republic or an empire ; a dictator or a consul ; a Robespierre or a Napoleon ; a monarch, the heir of fourteen centuries ; or a hero, the child of an hundred victories. All the great and useful undertakings, which in England, and all free countries, emanate from the capital or skill of individuals, or as- sociated bodies, in France spring from the go- vernment, and the government alone. Their universities, schools, and colleges ; academies of primary and secondary instruction ; mili- tary and polytechnic schools ; hospitals, cha- ritable institutions, libraries, museums, and public establishments of all sorts ; their har- bours, bridges, roads, canals — every thing, in short, originates with, and is directed by, the government. Hence, individuals in France seldom attempt any thing for the public good: private advantage, or amusement, the rise of fortune, or the increase of power, constitute the general motives of action. Like the pas- sengers in a ship, or the soldiers in an army, the French surrender themselves, withoiU a strusrgle, to the guidance of those in possessioa 128 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. of the lielin ; or if they rise in rebellion against them, it is not so much from any view to the public good, as from a desire to secure to them- selves the advantages which the possession of political power confers. This extraordinary concentration of every thing in the central government at Paris, always existed to a certain extent in France; but it has been increased, to a most extraordi- nar}' degree, under the democratic rule of the last forty years. It was the Constituent As- sembly, borne forward on the gales of revo- lutionar}'' fervour, which made the greatest additions' to the power of government — not merely by the concentration of patronage and direction of every kind in ministers, but by the destruction of the aristocrac)^, the church, the incorporations ; — every thing, in short, which could withstand or counterbalance the influence of government. The people, charmed with the installation of their representatives in supreme power, readily acquiesced in, or rather strenuously supported, all the additions made by the democratic legislature to the powers of the executive; fondly imagining that, by so doing, they were laying the surest foundation for the continuance of their own power. They little foresaw, what the event soon demon- strated, that they were incapable, in the long run, of preserving this power; that it would speedily fall into the hands of ambitious or designing men, who flattered their passions, in order to secure the possession of arbitrary authority for themselves ; and that, in the end, the absolute despotism, which they had created for the purpose of perpetuating the rule of the multitude, would terminate in imposing on them the most abject servitude. When Napo- leon came to the throne, he found it unneces- sary to make any great changes in the practical working of government; he found a despotism ready made to his hand, and had only to seize the reins, so tightly bitted on the nation by his revolutionary predecessors. The Revolution of July made no difference in this respect; or rather it tended to concen- trate still farther in the metropolis the authority and power of government. The able and in- defatigable leaders, who during the fifteen years of the Restoration had laboured incessantly to subvert the authority of the royalists, liad no sooner succeeded, than they quietly took pos- session of all the powers which they enjoyed, and, supported with more talent, and a greater display of armed force, exercised them with far greater severity. No concessions to real freedom were made — no division of the powers of the executive took place. All appointments in every line still flow from Paris: not a pos- tillion can ride a post-horse, nor peasant break a stone on the highways, from the Channel to the Pyrenees, unless authorized by the cen- tral authority. Tlie legislature convoked by liouis Philippe has done much to abridge the authority of others, but nothing to diminish that which is most to be dreaded. They have destroyed the hereditary legislature, the last remnant of European civilization which the convulsions of their predecessors had left, but done nothing to weaken the authority of the executive. Louis Philippe enjoys, during the precarious tenure of his crown, at the will of the Praetorian Guards of Paris, more absolute authority than ever Avas held by the most des- potic of the Bourbon race. France being held in absolute subjection by Paris, all that is necessary to preserve this authority is to secure the mastery of the capital. Marshal Soult has taught the citizea king how this is to be done. He keeps an immense military force, from 35,000 to 40,000 men, constantly in the capital ; and an equal force is stationed within twelve miles round, ready to march at a signal from the telegraph on Montmartre, in a few hours, to crush any at- tempt at insurrection. In addition to this, there are .50,000 National Guards in Paris, and 25,000 more in the Banlieue, or rural district round its walls, admirably equipped, well drilled, and, to appearance at least, quite equal to the regular soldiers. Of this great force, above 5000, half regulars and half National Guards, are every night on duty as sentinels, or patrols, in the capital. There is not a street where several sentinels, on foot or horseback, are not stationed, and within call of each a picquet or patrol, read}- to render aid, if required, at a minute's notice. Paris, in a period of profound peace, without an enemy approaching the Rhine, resembles rather a city in hourly expectation of an assault from & beleaguering enemy, than the capital of i peaceful monarchy. In addition to this prodigious display of military force, the civil employes, the police, constitute a body nearly as formidable, and, to individuals at least, much more dangerous. Not only are the streets constantly traversed by this force in their appropriate dress, but more than half their number are always prowl- ing about, disguised as workmen or trades- men, to pick up information, mark individuals, and arrest discontented characters. They enter coffee-houses, mingle in groups, overhear con- versations, join in discussions, and if they discover any thing seditious or dangerous, they either arrest the delinquent at once, and hand him over to the nearest guard, or denounce him to their superiors, and he is arrested at night by an armed force in his bed. Once incarcerated, his career, for a long time at least, is terminated : he is allowed to lie there till his projects evaporate, or his associates are dispersed, without either being discharged or brought to trial. There is not a night at this time, (August, 1833,) that from fifteen to twenty persons are not arrested in this way by the police; and nothing is heard of their subse- quent trial. From the long continuance of these arrests by the police, the prisons of Paris, spacious as they are, and ample as they were found during the Reign of Terror, have become unable to contain their numerous inmates. Fresh and extraordinary places of confinement have be- come necessary. A new jail, of great dimen- sions, guarded by an ample military force, has been constructed by the citizen king, near the cemetery of Prre la Chaise, where the over- flowings of the other prisons in Paris are safely lodged. The more dangerous characters ara conveyed to fortresses in the interior, or the FRANCE IN 1833. 129 Chateau of Mount St. Michael in Normandy. This great state-prison, capable of holding many hundred prisoners, is situated' in the sea, on the coast of the Channel, and ampl)' tenanted now by the most unruly part of the population of Paris, under a powerful military and naval garrison. A.bove fifteen hundred persons were arrested after the great revolt at the Cloister of St. Merri, in June, 1832, and, though a few have been brought to trial or discharged, the great majority still remain in prison, in the charge of the police, under Avarrants apparently of interminable duration. The nightly arrests and numerous domiciliary visits are con- stantly adding to this immense number, and gradually thinning that ardent body who ef- fected the Revolution of July, and have proved so formidable to every government of France, since the beginning of the revolutionary trou- bles in 1789. The Iragment of this body, who fought at the Cloister of St. Merri, evinced such heroic courage and invincible determination, fhat the government have resolved on a bdlum ad internccionem with such formidable antagonists, and, by the continued application of arrests and domiciliary visits, have now considerably weakened their numbers, as well as damped their hopes. Still it is against this democratic rump that all the vigilance of the police is exerted. The royalists are neglected or de- spised ; but the republicans, whom it is not so easy to daunt, are sought out with undecaying vigilance, and treated with uncommon severity. Public meetings, or any of the other constitu- tional modes of giving vent to general opinion in Great Britain, are unknown in France. If twenty or thirty thousand men were collected together in that way, they would infallibly be assailed by the military force, and their dis- persion, or the overthrow of the government, would be the consequence. The only relic of freedom, which has sur- vived the Revolution of July, is the liberty of the press. It is impossible to read the journals which are in every coffee-house every morn- ing, without seeing that all the efforts of des- potism have failed in coercing this mighty in- strument. The measures of public men are canvassed with unsparing severity: and not only liberdl, but revolutionary measures ad- vocated With great earnestness, and no small share of ability. It is not, however, without the utmost efforts on the part of government to suppress it, that this licentiousness exists. Prosecutions against the press have been in- stituted with a degree of rigour and frequency, since the Revolution of July, unknown under the lenient and feeble government of the Re- storation. The Tribune, which is the leading republican journal, has reached its eighty-second prosecution, since the Three Glorious Days. More prosecutions have been instituted since the accession of the Citizen King, than during the whole fifteen that the elder branch of the Bourbons was on the throne. The govern- ment, however, have not ventured on the de- cisive step of suppressing the seditious jour- nals, or establishing a censorship of the press. The recollection of the Three Days, which wmenced with the attempts to shut up the 9 printing-offices of some newspapers, prevents this last act of despotism. The National Guard, in all probability, would resist such aai attempt, and if not supported by them, it would endanger the crown of Louis Philippe. Go- vernment has apparently discovered that the retention of the power of abuse consoles the Parisians for the loss of all their other liber ties. They read the newspapers and see the ministry violently assailed, and imagine they are in full possession of freedom, though they cannot travel ten leagues from Paris without a passport, nor go to bed in the evening with any security that they will not be arrested during the night by the police, and consigned to prison, without any possibility of redress, for an indefinite period. The present governnaent appears to be generally disliked, and borne from despair of getting any other, more than any real attach- ment. You may travel over the whole coun- try without discovering one trace of affection to the reigning famil3^ Their names are hardly ever mentioned ; by common consent they appear to be consigned to oblivion by all classes. A large and ardent part of the peo- ple are attached to the memory of Napoleon, and seize every opportunity of testifying their admiration of that illustrious man. Another large and formidable body have openly es- poused the principles of democracy, and are indefatigable in their endeavours to establish their favourite dream of a republic. The Royalists, few in number in Paris and the great commercial towns, abound in the south and west, and openly proclaim their determi nation, if Paris will take the lead, to restore the lawful race of sovereigns. But Louis Philippe has few disinterested partisans, but the numerous civil and military employes who wear his livery or eat his bread. Not a ves- tige of attachment to the Orleans dynasty is to be seen in France. Louis Philippe is a man of great ability, vast energy, and indomitable resolution : but though these are the qualities most dear to the French, he has no hold of their affections. His presence in Paris is known only by the appearance of a mounted patrol on each side of the arch in the Place Carousel, who are stationed there only when the king is at the Tuileries. He enters the capital, and leaves it, without any one inquir- ing or knowing any thing about him. If he is seen in the street, not a head is uncovered, not a cry of Vive le Roi is heard. Nowhere is a print or bust of any of the royal family to be seen. Not a scrap of printing narrating any of their proceedings, beyond the government journals, is to be met with. You may travel across the kingdom, or, what is of more con sequence, traverse Paris in every direction, without being made aware, by any thing you see or hear, that a king exists in France. The royalists detest him, because he has establish- ed a revolutionaiy throne — the republicans, because he has belied all his professions in favour of freedom, and reared a military des potism on the foundation of the Barricades. The French, in consequence of these en cumstances, are in a very jieculiar state. They are discontented with everij thing, and what is 130 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. worse, they know not to what quarter to look for relief. They are tired of the Citizen Kin^;, •whom they accuse of saving money, and pre- paring for America; of having given them the •weight of a despotism without its security, and the exiiaustion t)f military preparation without either its glory or its advantages. They (ex- chuling the royalists) abhor the Bourbons, whom they regard as priest-ridden, and super- stitious, weak and feeble, men unfit to govern the first nation in the world. They dread a republic as likely to strip them of their sons and their fortunes , to induce an interminable war ■with the European powers ; deprive them of their incomes, and possibly endanger the national independence. They are discontented ■with the present, fearful of the future, and find their only consolation in reverting to the days of Napoleon and the Grand Army, as a bril- liant drama now lost for ever. They are in the situation of the victim of passion, or the slave of pleasure, worn out with enjoyment, blasd with satiety, Avho has no longer any en- joyment in life, but incessantly revolts with the prurient restlessness of premature age to the orgies andthe excesses of his youth. What then, it may be asked, upholds the reigning dynasty, if it is hated equally by both the great parties who divide France, and can number none but its own official dependents among its supporters 1 The answer is to be found in the immense extent of the pecuniary losses which the Revolution of July occasioned to all men of any property in the country, and the recollection of the Reign of Terror, ■^vhich is still vividly present to the minds of the ex- isting generation. On the English side of the channel, few are aware of the enormous pecuniary losses with which the triumph of democracy, in July, 1830, was attended. In Paris, all parties are agreed that the depreciation of property of every description in consequence of that event was about a third : in other words, every man found himself a third poorer after the over- throw of Charles X. than he was before it. Over the remainder of France the losses sus- tained were nearly as great, in some places still heavier. For the two years which suc- ceeded the Barricades, trade and commerce of every description was at a stand; the import of goods declined a fourth, and one half of the shopkeepers in Paris and all ihe great towns became bankrupt. The distress among the labouring classes, and especially those who depended on the sale of articles of manufac- tured industry or luxury, was unprecedented. It is the recollection of this long period of na- tional agony which upholds the throne of Louis Philippe. The National Guard of Paris, who are in truth the ruling power in France, know by bitter experience to what a revolution, even of the most bloodless kind, leads — decay of business, decline of credit, stoppage of sales, pressure of creditors. They recollect the in- numerable bankruptcies of 1830 and 1831, and are resolved that their names shall not enter the list They know that the next convulsion ■would establish a republic in unbridled sove- reignty: they know the principles of these •postles of democracy; they recollect their actions; the Reign of Terror, the massacrei in llie prisons float before their eyes. They have a vivid impression also of the external consequences of such an event: they know that their hot-headed youth Avould instantly press forward to regain the frontier of the Rhine ; they foresee an European war, a ces- sation of the influx of foreign wealth into Paris, and possibly a third visit by the Cos* sacks to the Champs Elysees. These are the considerations which maintain the allegiance of the National Guard, and uphold the throne of Louis Philippe, when there is hardly a spark of real attachment to him in the whole kingdom. He is supported, not because his character is loved, his achievements admired, or his principles venerated, but because he is the last barrier between France and revolu- tionary suffering, and because the people have drunk too deep of that draught to tolerate a re- petition of its bitterness. Although, therefore, there is a large and en- ergetic and most formidalile party in France, who are ardently devoted to revolutionary principles, and long for a republic, as the commencement of every imaginable felicity; yet the body in ■whom power is at present reall}- vested, is essentially conservative. The National Guard of Paris, composed of the most reputable of the citizens of that great me- tropolis, equipped at their own expense, and receiving no pay from government, consists of the very persons who have suffered most severel}' by the late convulsions. They form the ruling power in France ; for to them more than the garrison of the capital, the govern'^ ment look for that support which is so neces- sary amidst the furious factions by whom they are assailed; and to their opinions the people attach a degree of weight which does not belong to any other body in France. The Chamber of Peers are disregarded, the legis- lative body despised ; but the National Guard is the object of universal respect, because every one feels that they possess the power of making or unmaking kings. The crown does not hesitate to act in opposition to a vote of both Chambers • but the disapprobation of a majority of the National Guard is sure to com- mand attention. In vain the Chamber of De- puties refused a vote of supplies for the erec- tion of detached forts round Paris; the ground was nevertheless purchased, and the sappers and miners, armed to the teeth, were busily employed from four in the morning till twelvs at night, in their construction ; but when seve* ral battalions of the National Guard, in de- filing before the king, on the anniversary of the Three Days, exclaimed, " A has les forts detaches," the works were suspended, and are now going on only at Vincennes, and two other points. That which Avas refused to the collected wisdom of the Representatives of France is conceded at once to the cries of armed men : the ultimate decision is made by the bayonet; and the boasted- improvements of modern civilization, terminate in the same appeal to physical strength which character- ize the days of Clovis. This contempt into which the legislature has fallen, is one of the great features ot FRANCE IN 1833. 131 France, since the Revolution of JiTly ; but it is one which is least known or imderslood on the English side of the channel. The causes which produced it had been long in operation, but it was that event which brought them fully and prominently into view. The supreme power has now passed into other hands. It was neither the Peers nor the Commons, but the Populace in the streets, the heroes of the Barricades, who seated Louis Philippe on the throne. The same force, it is acknowledged, possesses the power to dethrone him; and hence the National Guard of the capital, as the organized concentration of this power, is looked to \vith respect. The departments, it is known, will hail with shouts whatever king, or whatever form of government the armed force in the capital choose to impose ; the de- puties, it is felt, will hasten to make their sub- mission to the leaders who have got possession of the treasury, the bank, the telegraph, and the war office. Hence, the strife of faction is no longer carried on by debates in the Chambers, or efforts in the legislature. The National Guard of Paris is the body to which all attention is directed ; and if the departments are considered, it is not in order to influence their representatives, but to procure addresses or petitions from members of their National Guards, to forward the views of the great par- ties at work in the metropolis. Such petitions or addresses are daily to be seen in the public papers, and are referred to with undisguised satisfaction by the parties whose views they support. No regard is paid but to the men who have bayonets in their hands. Every thing directly, or indirectly, is referred to physical strength, and the dreams of modern equality are fast degenerating into the lasting empire of the sword. The complete insignificance of the Cham- bers, however, is to be referred to other and more general causes than the successful re- volt of the Barricades. That event only tore aside the veil which concealed the weakness of the legislature ; and openly proclaimed what political wisdom had long feared, that the elements of an authoritative and pa- ramount legislature do not exist in France. When the National Assembly destroyed the nobilitjs the landed proprietors, the clergy, and the incorporations of the country, they rendered a respectable legislature impossible. It is in vain to attempt to give authority or weight to ordinary individuals not gifted with peculiar talents, by merely electing them as members of parliament. If they do not, from their birth, descent, fortune, or estates, already pos- sess it, their mere translation in the legislature will never have this efl^ect. Tlie House of Commons under the old English constitution t T/as so powerful, because it contained the re- ' presentatives of all the great and lasting inte- I rests of the country, of its nobles, its landed proprietors, its merchants, manufacturers, burghers, tradesmen, and peasants. It com- ! manded universal respect, because every man felt that his own interests were wound up with and defended by a portion of that bod3% But this is not and cannot be the case in France — the classes are destroyed from whom the re- presentatives of such varied interests must b« chosen : the interests in the nation do not exis^ whose intermixture is essential to a weighty legislature. Elected by persons possessed of one uniform qualification — the payment of di. rect taxes to the amount of two hundred francs, or eight pounds sterling a-year— the deputies are the representatives only of one class in society, the small proprietors. The other in- terests in the state either do not exist or are not represented. The persons who are chosen are seldom remarkable either for their fortune, family, talent, or character. They are, to use a homely expression, "neighbour like;" indi- viduals of a bustling character, or ambitious views, who have taken to politics as the best and most lucrative profession they could choose, as opening the door most easily to the innumerable civil and military offices which are the object of universal ambition in France. Hence they are not looked up to with respect even by their own department, who can never get over the homeliness of their origin or moderation of their fortune, and by the rest of France are unknown or despised. The chief complaint against the legislature in France is, that it is swayed by corruption and interested motives. That complaint has greatly increased since the lowering of the free- hold qualification from three hundred to two hundred francs of direct taxes, in consequence of the Revolution of July. This change has opened the door to a lower and more corruptible class of men ; numbers of whom got into the legislature by making the most vehement pro- fessions of liberal opinions to theirconstitnents, which they instantly forgot when the seductions of office and emolument were displayed before their eyes. The majority of the Chamber, it is alleged, are gained by corruption ; and the more that the qualification is lowered the worse has this evil become. This is founded on the principles of human nature, and is of univer- sal application. The more that you descend in society, the more will you find men accessi- ble to base and selfish considerations, because bribes are of greater value to those who pos- sess little or nothing than those who possess a great deal. Many of the higher ranks are corrupt, but the power of resisting seduction exists to a greater degree among them than their inferiors. You often run the risk of in- sult if you ofl^er a man or woman of elevated station a bribe, but seldom if it is insinuated into the hand of their valet or lady's maid; and when the ermine of the bench is unspotted, so much can frequently not be said of the clerks or servants of those elevated functionaries. Where the legislature is elected by persons of that inferior description, the influence of corruption will always be found to increase. It is for the people of England to judge whether the Reformed Parliament is or is not destined to afford another illustration of the rule. To whatever cause it may be owing, the fact is certain, and cannot be denied by any person practically acquainted with France, that the Chamber of Deputies has fallen into the moit complete contempt. Their debates have al- most disappeared; they are hardly reported by the public press ; seldom is any opposition 182 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS M be seen amongst them. When Louis Plii- .ippe's crown was in jeopardy in June, 1832, it was to the National Guard, and not to cither branch of the legislature, that all parlies look- ed with anxiety. A unanimous vote of the old English Parliament would prohably have had great weight Avith an English body of insur- gents, as it certainly disarmed the formidable rmitineers at the Nore ; but a unanimous vote of both Chambers at Paris would have had little or no effect. A hearty cheer from three bat- talions of National Guards would have been worth a hundred votes of the Chambers ; and an insurrection, which all the moral force of Parliament could not subdue, fell before the vigour of two regiments of National Guards from the Banlieue. It is owing apparently to this prodigious as- cendency of tlie National Guard of Paris, that the freedom of discussion in the public jour- nals has survived all the other liberties of France. These journals are, in truth, the pleaders before the supreme tribunals M'hich govern the country, and they are flattered by the fearlessness of the language which is em- ployed before them. They are as tenacious of the liberty of the press at Paris, in conse- quence, as the ProDtorian Guards or Janizaries Avere of their peculiar and ruinous privileges. The cries of the National Guard, the ruling power in France, are prejudiced by the inces- sant eflbrts of the journals on the different sides, who have been labouring for months or years to sway their opinions. Thus the ulti- mate appeal in that country is to the editors of newspapers, and the holders of bayonets, perhaps the classes of all others who are most unfit to be intrusted with the guidance of pub- lic affairs; and certainly those the least quali- fied, in the end, to maintain their independence against the seductions or offers of a powerful executive. The central government at Paris is omnipo- tent in France ; but it does by no means follow from that, that this central government is itself placed on a stable foundation. The authority of the seraglio is paramount over Turkey : but within its precincts the most dreadful contests are of perpetual recurrence. The National Assembly, by concentrating all the powers of government in the capital, necessa- rily delivered over its inhabitants to an inter- minable future of discord and strife. When once it is discovered that the mainspring of all authority and influence is to be found in the government offices of Paris, the efforts of Ae different parlies who divide the state are incessant to make themselves masters of the talisman. This is to be done, not by any efforts in the departments, any speeches in the legislature, or any measures for the public good, but by incessant working at the armed force of the capital. By labouring in the pub- lic journals, in pamphlets, books, reviews, and magazines, for a certain number of years, the faction in opposition at length succeed in making an impression on the holders of bay- onets in Paris, or on the ardent and penniless fouth who frequent its coffee-houses; and when once this is done, by a well organized tmeiitc, the whole is concluded. The people are roused ; the National Guard hesitate, ol join the insurgents ; the troops of the line re- fuse to act against their fellow-cilizens; the reigning dynasty is dethroned; a new flag is hoisted at the Tuileries ; and the submissive departments hasten to declare their allegiance to the reigning power now in possession of the treasury and the telegraph, and disposing of some hundred thousand civil and military offices throughout France. No sooner is this great consummation effected, than the fruits of the victory begin to be enjoyed by the successful party. Office^ honours, posts, and pensions, are showered down on the leaders, the officers, and pioneers in the great work of national regeneratioh. The editors of the journals whose side has proved victorious, instantly become ministers: all their relations and connections, far beyond any known or computable degree of consan- guinity, are seated in lucrative or important offices. Regiments of cavalrj', prefetships, sous-prefetships, procureurships, mayorships, adjointships, offices in the customs, excise, police, roads, bridges, church, universities, schools, or colleges, descend upon them thick as autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa. Mean- while the vanished party are universally and rigidly excluded from office, their whole rela- tions and connections in every part of France find themselves suddenly reduced to a stale of destitution, and their only resource is to begin to work upon the opinions of the armed force or restless population of the capital, in the hope that, afler the lapse of a certain number of years, another revolution may be effected, and the golden showers descend upon them* selves. In the Revolution of July, prepared as it had been by the efforts of the liberal press for fifteen years in France, and organized as it was by the wealth of Lafitte, and a few of the great bankers in Paris, this system was suc- cessful. And accordingly, Thiers, Guizot, the Duke de Broglio, and the whole coterie of the doctrinaires, have risen at once, from being editors of newspapers, or lecturers to students, to the station of ministers of state, and dis- pensers of several hundred thousand offices. They are now, in consequence, the objects of universal obloquy and haired with the remain- der of the liberal parly, who accuse them of having sacrificed all their former opinions, and embraced all the arbitrary tenets of the royalist faction, whom they were instrumental in subverting. Their conduct since they came into office, and especially since the accession of Casimir Perier's administration on the 13th March, 1831, has been firm and moderate, strongly inclined to conservative principles, and, in consequence, odious to the last degree to the anarchical faction by whose aid they rose to greatness. The great effort of this excluded faction was made on the 5th and 6lh of June, 1832, on occasion of the funeral of Lamarque. In England it was not generally known how for- midable that insurrection was, and how nearly it had subverted the newly erected throne of the Barricades. Above eighty thou- sand persons, including a considerable por* FRANCE IN 1833. 1S3 tion of the National Guard from theFanxbourg St. Aiitoine, and other manufacturing districts of Paris, walked in regular military array, keeping the step in that procession : no one could see them without being astonished how the government survived the crisis. In truth, their existence hung by a thread ; — for several hours a feather would have cast the balance — established a republican government, and plunged Europe in an interminable war. Till six o'clock in the evening the insurgents were continually advancing; and, at that hour, they had made themselves masters of about one- half of Paris, including the^whole district to the eastward of a line drawn from the Port St. Martin through the Hotel de Ville to the Pantheon. At the first alarm the government surrounded the Fauxbourg St. Antoine with ti'oops, and would have perished, but for the fortunate cutting oiT of that great revolution- ary quarter from the scene of active prepa- rations. Though deprived of the expected co-operation in that district, however, the in- surgents bravely maintained the combat; they entrenched themselves in the neighbourhood of the cloister of St. Merri, and among the narrow streets of that densely peopled quarter, maintained a doubtful struggle. The minis- ters, in alarm, sent for the king, with intelli- gence that his crown was at stake: above sixty thousand men, 'with an immense train of artillery, were brought to the spot ; but still the issue seemed suspended. The National Guard of the city, for the most part, hung back; the cries of others were openly in favour of the insurgents ; if a single battalion, either of the line or the National Guard, at tliat crisis had openly joined the rebels, all was lost. In this extremity a singular circum- stance changed the fortune of the day, and fixed his tottering crown on the head of Louis Philippe. The little farmers round Paris, Avho live by sending their milk and vegetables to the capital, found their business suspended by tlie contest which was raging in the centre of the city, where the markets for their pro- duce are held; their stalls and paniers were seized by the rebels, and run up into barri- cades. Enraged at this invasion of their pro- perty and stoppage of their business, these little dealers joined their respective banners, and hastened with the National Guard of the Banlieue to the scene of action : they were plentifully supplied with wine and spirits on the outside of the barrier; and before the ex- citation had subsided, were hurried over the barricades, and determined the conflict. In its last extremity the crown of Louis Philippe was saved, neither by his boasted guards, nor the civic force of the metropolis, but the anger of a body of hucksters, gardeners, and milk- dealers, roused by the suspension of their tiumble occupations. It is this peculiarity in the situation of the French government which renders it neces- sary to Avatch the state of parties in Paris with such intense anxiety, and renders the strife in its streets the signal for peace or war all over the civilized world. The government of France, despotic as it is over the remainder of the country, is entirely at the mercy of the meti-opolis. Having no root in the provinces being based on no great interests in the stale it depends entirely on the armed force of the capital — a well organized cmeule, the defection of a single regiment of guards, a few seditious cries from the National Guard, the sight of a favourite banner, a fortunate allusion to heart- stirring recollections, may at any moment con- sign it to destruction. If the insurgents of the city of Paris can make themselves masters of the Hotel de Ville, France is more than half conquered ; if their forces are advanced to the Marche des Innocens, the throne is in greater danger than if the Rhine had been crossed by two hundred thousand men : but if their flag is hoisted on the Tuileries, the day is won, and France, with its eighty-four departments and thirty-two millions of inhabitants, is at the disposal of the victorious faction. If the rebels who sold their lives so dearly in the cloister of St. Merri could have openly gained over to their side one regiment, and many only waited an example to join their colours, they would speedily have been in possession of the trea- sury, and the telegraph, and France was at their feet. No man knew this peculiarity in the political situation of the great nation better than Napoleon. He was little disquieted by the failure of the Russian campaign, till intelli- gence of the conspiracy of Mallet reached his ears; and that firmness Avhich the loss of four hundred thousand men could not shake, was overturned by the news that the rebels in Paris had imprisoned the minister of police, and were within a hair's breadth of making themselves masters of the telegraph. It is not surprising that Paris should have acquired this unbridled sovereignty over the rest of the country, if the condition in which the provinces have been left by the Revolution is considered. You travel through one of the departments — not a gentleman's house or a chateau is to be seen. As far as the eye can reach, the country js covered Avith sheets of grain, or slopes covered with vines or vege- tables, raised by the peasants who inhabit the villages, situated at the distance of a few miles from each other. Does this immense expanse belong to noblemen, gentlemen, or opulent proprietors capable of taking the lead in any common measures for the defence of the public liberties 1 On the contrary, it is partitioned out among an immense body of little proprie- tors, the great majority of whom are in a state of extreme poverty, and who are chained to the plough by the most imperious of all laws — that of absolute necessity. Morning, noon, and night, they are to be seen labouring in the fields, or returning weary and spent to their humble homes. Is it possible from such a class to expect any combined cflbrt in favour of the emancipation of the provinces from the despotism of the capital ] The thing is utter- ly impossible : as well might you look for an organized struggle for freedom among the serfs of Russia or the ryots of Hindostan. A certain intermixture of peasant proprie- tors is essential to the well-being of society; and the want of such a class to a larger e ftent in England, is one of the circumstances most to be "lamented in its social condition. But 134 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. ihere is a medium in all things. As much as 4he total want of little landowners is a serious evil, so much is the total want of an\' other class to be deprecated. In the time of the Duke de Gacta, (1816,) that able statesman calculated that there were four millions of landed proprietors in France, and 14,000,000 of souls constituting their families, independent of the wages of labour.* At present the num- ber is computed at twenty-five millions, and there are above ten millions of separate pro- perties enrolled and rated for taxation in the government book. Generally speaking, thej' occupy the whole land in the country. Here and there an old chateau, still held b}'' a rem- nant of the old noblesse, is to be iseen ; or a modern villa, inhabited in summer by an opulent banker from one of the great manu- facturing towns. But their number is too in- considerable, they are too far separated from each other, to have any weight in the political scale. France is, in fact, a country of peasants, interspersed with a few great manufacturing towns, and ruled by a luxurious and corn^pted capital. Even the great manufacturing towns are incapable of forming any counterpoise to the power of the capital. The}'^ are situated too far from each other, they depend too complete- ly on orders from Paris, to be capable of opposing any resistance to its authoritj-. If Rouen, Marseilles, Lyons, or Bourdeaux were to attempt the struggle, the central govern- ment would quickl}' crush each singly, before it could be aided by the other confederates. They tried to resist, under the most favourable circumstances, in 1793, when the Convention were assailed by all the powers of Europe, when two-thirds of France joined their league, and the M-est was torn by the Vendean war, and totally failed. Any repetition of the at- tempt is out of the question. The representative system, the boast of modern civilization, has been found by ex- perience to be incapable of affording any remedy for this universal prostration of the provinces. That system is admirably adapted for a country which contains a gradation of classes in society from the prince to the pea- sant; but it must always fail where the in- termediate classes are destroyed, and there exist only the government and the peasantry. Where this is the case, the latter body will ■ always be found incapable of resisting the in- fluence of the central authority. Who, in every age, from the signing of Magna Charta, have taken the lead in the support of English freedom? The barons, and great landed pro- prietors, who possessed at oiice the resolution, influence, and power of combination, which are indispensable to such an attempt. Even the Reform Bill, the last and greatest triumph of democratic ambition, was forced through the legislature, by the aid of a large and opu- lent portion of the aristocracy. If the Revo- lution of 1042 or 1088 had destroyed this in- termediate body in the state, the representa- tive system would speedily have fallen into contempt. The humble, needy representatives *Duc de Gacta, ii. 334. of humble and needy constituents would ic > the end have found themselves overshadowed by the splendour of the court, the power of the metropolis, or the force of the army. In periods of agitation, when the public mind Ja in a ferment, and the chief powers of the state pulled in one direction, they would have been irresistible; but in times of tranquillity, when the voice of passion was silent, and that of interest constantly heard, they would have certainly given wa)'. What is required in the representatives of the people, is a permanent resistance at all times to the various dangers which threaten the public freedom ; in periods of democratic agitation, a firm resistance to precipitate innovation; in times of pacific en- joyment, a steady disregard of government seduction. Human nature is weak, and we must not expect from any body of men, how- ever constituted, a steady adherence to duty under such circumstances of varied trial and difficulty; but experience has proved, that it may be expected, with some probability, among an aristocratic body, because their interests are permanent, and equally endangered by each set of perils ; but that it is utterly chimeri- cal to look for it among the representatives of a body of peasants or little proprietors, un- mingled with any considerable intermixture of the higher classes of society. But the Revolution has extinguished these classes in France, and therefore it has not left the ele- ments out of which to frame a constitutional monarchy. These circumstances explain a fact singular- ly illustrative of the present state of parties in France, and the power to whom the ultimate appeal is made, viz. the eminent and illus- trious persons by M^hom the daily press is conducted. • Every one knows by Avhat class in society the daily press is conducted in Eng- land ; it is in the hands of persons of great ability, but in general of inferior grade in society. If the leading political characters do occasionally contribute an article, it is done under the veil of secrecy, and is seldom ad- mitted by the author, with Avhatever fame it may have been attended. But in France the case is quite the reverse. There the leading political characters, the highest of the nobles, the first men in the state, not only contribute regularly to the daily or periodical press, but avow and glory in their doing so. Not only the leading literar)'- characters, as Chateau- briand, Guizot, Thiers, and others, regularly write for the daily press ; but many of the Peers of France conduct, or contribute to, the public newspapers. The Gazette de France and Quotidienne are supported by contribu- tions from the royalist nobility; the .Journal des Debats is conducted by a Peer of France. So far from being considered as a discredit, or a thing to be concealed, these eminent men pride themselves on the influence they thus have on public opinion. The reason is ob- vious ; they are the speakers before the real National Assembly of France, the National Guard and armed force of Paris. Considera- tion and dignity will ever attend the persons whose exertions directly lead to the possession of political power. When, in the progress of FRANCE IN 1833. 13B democratic changes, the Reformed Parliament of England has sunk as low in public estima- tion as the Chamber of Deputies in France, the dukes and earls of England, if such a class exist, will become the editors of news- papers, and pride themselves on the occupa- tion. Th6 taxation of France is extremely heavy, and has been increased to a most extraordi- nary degree since the Revolution of July. In a table below,* will be found a return of the budgets of the last ten years, lately published in Paris by authority of government. From this it appears that the expenditure of the last year of Charles X., was 950,000,000 francs, or about £39,000,000 sterling, while that of the first year of Louis Philippe, was above 1,500,000,000 francs, or £60,000,000. Thus, «'hile the Three Glorious Days diminished every man's property by a tlth-d, it added to the national burdens by a half. Such are the blessings of democratic ascendenc}'. The taxation of France has become an evil of the very greatest magnitude, and with every addition made to democratic power, it has be- come worse. The property-tax is thirteen per cent, on the annual value ; but by the arbitrary and unfair w"ay in which valuations are taken, it frequently amounts to twenty, sometimes to thirty per cent, on what is really received by the proprietor. Professional persons, whose income is fluctuating, pay an income-tax on a graduated scale; and the indirect taxes bring in about 500,000,000 francs, or £20,000,000 sterling. The direct taxes amount to about 350,000,000 francs, or £14,000,000 sterling; a much heavier burden than the income-tax was on England, for the national income of Eng- land is much greater than that of France. As the result of their democratic efforts, the French have fixed on themselves national burdens, nearly three times as heavy as those which were so much complained of in the time of Louis XYI. ;f and greatly more oppressive than those which the revolutionary war has imposed on the English people. Nor is this all. In addition to this enormous increase of taxation, the Revolution of July has occasioned the sale of a very large portion of the royal domains. In every part of France the crown lands and forests have been alienated to a very great extent ; and the words which so often meet a traveller's e}'es, "Biens patrimo- niaux de la Couronne a vendre," indicate too clearly how universally the ruthless hand of the spoiler has been laid on the remaining public estates of the realm. Notwithstanding this, however, the charac- ter of the French government has been essen- tially changed by the Revolution of the Barri- cades. It possesses now a degree of power, », Bud sets of France for the last ten years. 18^i 951,992,000 francs. or £38,100.000 1S25 916,098,000 do. 37,100.000 1826 942,518,000 do. 37,800,000 1S27 986.527,000 do. 38,730,000 1828 939.313,000 do. 37,330.000 1829 0T5,:03,000 do. 38,8)0.000 1830 981,510.000 do. 38.930.000 1831 1,511,500.000 do. 60,000.000 I8:f2 1,100.506,000 do. 44,000.0110 1833 1,120,394,000 do 44,500,000 \ /"Uey were then about £19,000,000 a year. vigour, and despotic authority, to which there has been nothing comparable since the days of Napoleon. The facility with which it over- turned the great democratic revolt at the cloister of St. Merri, in June, 1832, and at L3'ons in No- vember, 1831, both of which were greatly more formidable than that of the Three Days, is a sufficient proof of this assertion. The deeds of despotism, the rigorous acts of government, which are now in daily operation under the citizen king, could never have been attempted during the restoration. Charles X. declared Paris in a state of siege, and issued an edict against the liberty of the press ; and in a few days, in consequence, he was precipitated from his throne : Marshal Soult declared Paris in a state of siege, and still more rigidly fettered the press ; and the act of vigour confirmed in- stead of weakening his sovereign's authority. It is the daily complaint of the republican press, that the acts of government are now infinitely more rigorous than they have ever been since the fall of Napoleon, and that the nation under the restoration would never have tolerated the vexatious restraints which are now imposed \ipon its freedom. To give one or two examples from the newspapers lying before us. "Yesterday evening, twenty-eight persons, accused of seditious practices, were arrested and sent to prison by the agents of the police. Never did tyranny advance with such rapid strides as it is doing at the present time." — Tribune, Aug. 20. "Yesterday night, eighteen more persons, accused of republican practices, were sent to prison. How long will the citizens of Pdris permit a despotism to exist among them, to which there has been nothing comparable since the days of Napoleon 1" — Tribune, Aug. 21. " More barracks are in course of being erected in the neighbourhood of Graulle. If matters go on much longer at this rate, Paris will contain more soldiers than citizens." Tribune, Aug. 23. If Charles X. or Louis XVIII. had adventured upon the extraordinary steps of sending state prisoners by the hundred to the castle of mount St. Michael in Normandy, or erecting an ad- ditional prison of vast dimensions near Pere la Chaise, to receive the overflowings of the other jails in Paris, maintaining forty or fifty thousand men constantly in garrison in the capital, or placing a girdle of fortified bastiles round its walls, the vehemence of the public clamour would either have rendered necessary the abandonment of the measures, or straight- way precipitated them from the throne. All parties now admit that France possessed as much real freedom as was consistent with public order under the Bourbons ; there is not one which pretends that any of that liberty is still enjoyed. Theyare completelyat variance, indeed, as to the necessity of its removal ; the republicans maintaining that an unnecessary and odious despotism has been established; the juste milieu, that a powerful government is the only remaining barrier between France and democratic anarchy, and, as such, is ab- solutely indispensable for the preservation of order ; but all are agreed that the constitu ..86 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. tional frcciloin of the Restoration no longer exists. An attentive observation of tlie present state of France is all that is requisite to show the causes of these apparently anonuilous facts ; — of the tempered rule, limited authority, and constitutional sway of the Bourbons, in spite of the absolute frame of government which they received iVom Napoleon and the Revolu- tion ; and the despotic rigour and irresistible force of the present dynasl}-, notwithstanding the democratic transports which seated it upon the throne. Such a survey will, at the same time, throw a great and important light tipon tlie final eflect of the first Revolution on the cause of freedom, and go far to vindicate the government of that superintending wis- dom, which, even in this world, compels vice to work out its own deserved and memorable punishment. The practical and efficient control upon the executive authority, in every state, is to be found in the jealousy of the middling and lower orders of the rule of the higher, who are in possession of the reins of power. " This is the force which really coerces the government in every state ; it is to be found in the tumults of Constantinople, or the anarchy of Persia, as well as in the constitutional opposition of the British parliament. The representative system only gives a regular and constitutional channel • to the restraining power, without Avhich society might degenerate into the anarchy of Poland, or be disgraced by the strife of the Seraglio. As long as this jealousy remains entire among the people, and the fabric of government is sufficiently strong to resist its attacks on any of its necessary functions — as long as it is a drag on its movements, not the ruling power, the operations of the executive are subjected to a degree of restraint which constitutes a limited monarchy, and diffuses general free- dom. This is the natural and healthful state of society ; where the people, disqualified by their multitude and their habits from the task of government, fall into their proper sphere of observing and controlling its movements ; and the aristocracy, disqualified by their limited number from the power of eflectually control- ling the executive, if possessed by the people, occupy their appropriate station in forming part of the government, and supporting the throne. The popular body is as unfit to go- vern the state, as the aristocracy is to defend its liberties against a democratic executive. History has many instances to exhibit, of li- berty existing for ages with a senate holding the reins, and a populace checking its en- croachments; it has not one to show of the same blessing being found under a democracy in possession of the executive, with the de- fence of public freedom intrusted to a displaced aristocracy. From the Revolution of 1G88 to that of 1832, the annals of England presented the perfect specimen of public freedom fluu- rishing under the first form of government; it remains to be seen whether it will subsist for any length of time under the second. Experience, accordingly, has demonstrated, what theory had long asserted, that the over- drew of the liberty of all free stales has arisen from the usurpation of the executive authority by the democracy ; and that, as long as the reins of power are in the hands of the nobles the jealousy of the commons was an adequate security to the cause of freedom. Rome long maintained its liberties, notwithstanding the contests of the patricians and plebeians, while the authority of the senate was nnimpaired; but when the aristocracy, under Cato, Brutus, and Pompey, were overturned by the demo- cracy headed by Ctesar, the tyranny of the emperors rapidly succeeded. The most com- plete despotism of modern times is to be found in the government of Robespierre and Napo- leon, both of whom rose to power on the de- mocratic transports of a successful revclution. Against the encroachments of their natural and hereditary rulers, the sovereign and the nobles, the people, in a constitutional mo- narchy, are in general sufficiently on their guard: and against their efforts, the increasing power which they acquire from the augmenta- tion of their wealth and intelligence in the later stages of society, is a perfectlj'- sufficient security. But of the despotism of the rulers of their own part}^ — the usurpation of the leaders whom they have themselves seated in the chariot, — they are never sufficiently jea- lous, because they conceive that their own power is deriving fresh accessions of strength from every addition made to the chiefs -who have so long combated by their sine; and this delusion continues nniversally till it is too late to shake their authority, and on the ruins of a constitutional monarchy, an absolute despotism has been constructed. " Le leurre du despotisme qui commence est toujours," says Guizot, "d'offrir aux hommes les trompeurs avantages d'une honteuse ega- lite."* Had the first Revolution of France, like the great rebellion of England, merely passed over the stale without uprooting all its institutions, and destroying every branch of its aristocracy, there can be little doubt that a constitutional monarchy might have been established in France, and possibly a hundred and forty years of liberty and happiness formed, as in Britain, the maturity of its national strength. But the total destruction of all these classes in the bloody convulsion, and the division of their estates among an innumerable host of little proprietors, rendered the formation of such a monarchy impossible, because one of the ele- ments was awanting which is indispensable to its existence, and no counterpoise remained to the power of the democracy at one time, or of the executive at another. You might as well make gunpowder without sulphur, as rear up constitutional freedom without an hereditary aristocracy to coerce the people and restrain the throne. "A monarchy," says Bacon, " without an aristocrac}', is ever an absclnie despotism, for a nobility attempers somewhat the reverence for the line royal." " The P.evo- luiioii," says Napoleon, " left France absolutely without an aristocracy; and this rendered tho Airmation of a mixed constitution impos'iible. The government had no lever to rest upon to * Guizot, Essais sur I'ltistoirc dc France 13. FRANCE IN 1833. 137 direct the people ; it was compelled to navi- gate in a single element. The French Revolu- tion has attempted a problem as insoluble as the direction of balloons !"* When Napoleon seized the helm, therefore, he had no alternative but to see revolutionary anarchy continue in the state, or coerce the people by a military despotism. He chose the latter; and under his firm and resolute go- vernment, France enjoyed a degree of prospe- rity and happiness unknown since the fall of the monarchy. Those M-ho reproach him with departing from the principles of the Revolution, and rearing up a military throne by means of a scaffolding of democratic construction, would do well to shoM^ how he could otherwise have discharged the first of duties in governments, — the giving protection and security to the peo- ple; how a mixed and tempered constitution could be established, Avhen the violence of the people had totally destroyed their natural and hereditary rulers ; and how the passions of a populace, long excited by the uncontrolled riot in power, were to be coerced by a senate com- posed of salaried dignitaries, destitute either of property or importance, and a body of ignoble deputies, hardly elevated, either in station or acquirements, above the citizens to whom they owed their election. The overthrow of Napoleon's power by the arms of Europe, for a time established a con- stitutional throne in France, and gave its in- habitants fifteen years of undeserved freedom and happiness. But this freedom rested on an Unstable equilibrium; it had not struck its roots into the substratum of society; it was liable to be overturned by the first shock of adverse fortune. As it was, however, it con- tributed, in a most essential manner, to deceive the world, — to veil the irreparable conse- quences of the first convulsion, — and make mankind believe that it was possible, on the basis of irreligion, robbeiy, and murder, to rear up the fair fabric of regulated freedom. We have to thank the Revolution of the Bar- ricades for drawing aside the veil, — for dis- playing the consequences of national delin- quency on future ages ; and beneath the fair colours of the whited sepulchre, exhibiting the foul appearances of premature corruption and decay. What gave temporary freedom to France under the Restoration was the prodigious ex- haustion of the democratic spirit by the cala- mities which attended the close of Napoleon's reign ; the habits of submission to which his iron government had accustomed the people ; the terror produced by the double conquest of Paris by the Allies, the insecure and obnoxious tenure by which the Bourbons held their authority, and the pacific character and per- sonal weakness of that race of sovereigns themselves. 1. The exhaustion of France by the calami- ties which hurled Napoleon from the throne, undoubtedly had a most powerful eflect in coercing for a time the fierce and turbulent passions of the people. It is in the young that the spirit of liberty and the impatience of * Napoleon's Memoirs. restraint is ever most fervent, and from their energy that the firmest principles of freedom and the greatest excesses of democracy have equally arisen. But the younger generations of France were, to a degree unprecedented in modern times, mowed down by the revolu- tionary wars. After seventeen years of more than ordinary consumption of human life, came the dreadful campaigns of 1812, 1813, and 1814; in the first of which, between Spain and Russia, not less than 700,000 men perish- ed by the sword or sickness, while, in the two latter, the extraordinary levy of 1,200,000 men was almost entirely destroj-ed. Bv these prodigious efforts, France was literal] \- ex- hausted; these copious bleedings reduced the body politic to a stale of almost lethargic torpor; and, accordingly, neither the invasion and disasters of 1814, nor the return of Napo- leon in 1815, could rouse the mass of the nation to any thing like a state of general excitement. During the first years of the Bourbons' reign, accordingly, they had to rule over a people whose fierce passions had been tamed by unprecedented misfortunes, and hot blood drained off by a merciless sword ; and it was not till the course of time, and the ceaseless powers of population had in some degree repaired the void, that that general im- patience and restlessness began to be mani fested which arises from the difficulty of finding employment, and is the common pre- cursor of political changes. 2. The government of Napoleon, despotic and unfettered in its original construction, after the 18th Brumaire, had become, in pro- cess of time, the most arbitrary and powerful of any in Europe. Between the destruction of all ancient, provincial, and corporate au- thorities, by the successive revolutionary as- semblies, and the complete centralization of all the powers and influence of the state in the government at Paris, which took place during bis government, there was not a vestige of popular power left in France. The people had been accustomed, for fourteen years, to submit to the prefets, sous-prefets, mayors, adjoints, and other authorities appointed by the central government at Paris, and they had in a great degree lost the recollection of the intoxicating powers which they exercised during the Revolution. The habit of submis- sion to an absolute government, which enforced its mandates by 800,000 soldiers, and had three hundred thousand civil offices in its gift, had in a great degree prepared the country for slavery. To the direction of this immense and strongly constructed machine the Bourbons succeede>^; and it went on for a number of years working of itself, without the people ge- nerally being conscious of the helm having passed from the firm and able grasp of Napo- leon to the inexperienced and feeble hands of his legitimate successors. Louis XVIII., in- deed, gave a charter to his subjects : "Vive la Charte" became the cry of the supporters of his throne : deputies were chosen, who met at Paris ; a Chamber of Peers was established, and the forms of a constitutional monarchy prevailed. But it is not by conferring the forms of a limited monarchy that its spirit can 138 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYfe. be acquired, or the necessary checks either on the throne or the populace established. France, under llie Bourbons, went through the forms of a representative government, but she had hardly a vestige of its spirit. Her people wove composed of a few hundred thousand ardent citizens in the towns, who longed for demo- cratic power and a republican government, and thirty millions of peasants and workmen, who were ready to submit to any government established by the ruling population of the capital. To coerce the former, or invigorate the latter, no means remained; and therefore it is that a constitutional monarchy no longer exists in France. 3. The consternation produced by the over- throw of Napoleon's throne, and the double occupation of Paris by the allied troops, went far to uphold a government wliich had risen up under their protection. While all the army and ardent patriots of the capital insisted that it had been surrendered by treachery in both cases, and could never have been conquered by force of arms, the astounding events pro- duced a great and awful impression through- out France, which is far from being as j'et eradicated. There are some calamities which remain long in the recollection of mankind. Volatile, susceptible of new impressions, and inconsiderate as great part of tl\e French un- doubtedly are, the successive capture of their capital in two campaigns sunk deep and heavil)'- in their minds. It wounded them in the most sensitive part, the feeling of national glory; and excited a painful doubt, heretofore unknown, of the ability of the great nation to resist a combined attack from the northern powers. This feeling still subsists ; it may have little influence with the young and war- "ike youth of the capital, but it is strongly im- pressed upon the more thoughtful and better informed classes of society, and is in an espe- cial manner prevalent among the National Guard of the metropolis, to whom, even more than the regular army, the nation looks for the regulation of its movements. It was to the prevalence of this feeling that the existence of the Bourbon government, during the fifteen j-^ears of the Restoration, was mainly owing ; and so prevalent was it even on the eve of their overthrow, that the revolt of the Barri- cades originated with, and was long supported solely by the very lowest classes ; and it M-as not till the defection of the army, and the im- becility of the government, had rendered it more than doubtful whether a revolution was not at hand, that they were joined by any considerable accession of strength from the educated or middling classes of societ)'. The same feeling of secret dread at tiie northern powers still exists, notwithstanding the acces- sion of England to the league of revolutionary governments; and, whatever the republican party may say to the contrary, nothing is more certain than that the cabinet of Louis IMiilippe has been supported in all its principal mea- sures, and especially in the proclamation of a state of siege by Marshal Soult, and the pacific system with the continental powers, by a great majority of all the persons of any wealth or consideration in Paris, now in possession, through the National Guard, of a preponderat- ing influence in the capital, and, consequently, over all France. The circumstances which have been men- tioned, contributed strongly to establish a des- potic government under the Bourbons, — the only kind of regular authority which the con- vulsions of the Kevolution have rendered practicable in France ; but to counteract these, and temper the rigour of the execu- tive, there were other circumstances of an equally important character, which gradually went on increasing in power, until they finally overbalanced the others, and overturned the government of the Restoration. 1. The first of these circumstances was the extreme national dissatisfaction which attend- ed the way in which the Bourbons reascended the throne. For a monarch of France to enter its capital, in the rear of a victorious invader, is the most unlikely way that can be imagined to gain the affections of its inhabitants ; but to do this twice over, and regain the throne on the second occasion, in consequence of such a thunderbolt as the battle of Waterloo, was a misfortune which rendered the popularity of the dynasty out of the question. The people naturally connected together the two events ; they associated the republican sway with the tricolour flag and the conquest of Europe, and the Bourbon dynasty with the disasters which had preceded their restoration : forgetting, what was the truth, that it was under the tricolour that all these disasters had been incurred ; and that the white flag was the olive branch which saved them from calamities, which they themselves had felt to be intolerable. This general feeling of irritation at the un- paralleled calamities in which Napoleon's reign terminated, was naturally and skilfully turned to account by the republican party. They constantly associated together the Bour- bon reign with the Russian bayonets; and held out the sovereigns of the Restoration, ra- ther as the viceroys of Wellington, or the satraps of Alexander, than the monarchs either by choice or inheritance of the Franks. This prejudice, which had too much support from the unfortunate coincidence of Napoleon's disasters with the commencement of their reign, soon spread deeply and universally among the liberal part of the people; and the continuance of the Bourbon dynasty on the throne came to be considered as the badge of national servitude, which, on the first dawn of returning liberation, should be removed. 2. The abolition of the national colours by the Bourbon princes, and the studious endea- vour made to obliterate the monuments and recollection of Napoleon, was a puerile weak- ness, from which the worst possible effects en- sued to their government. To suppose that it was possible to obliterate the remembrance of his mighty achievements, and substitute Ilcnry IV\ and Saint Louis for the glories of the empire, was worse than childish, and, as might have been expected, totally ineflx'ctual. In vain his portrait was prescribed, his letters eflaccd fronr the edifices, his name hardly mentioned, except with vituperation by the ministerial organs ; the admiration for bi« FRANCE IN 1833. 139 greatness only increased from the efforts made to suppress it; and of his, as the images of Brutus and Cassius at the funeral of Junia, it might truly be said, "Viginti clarissimarum familiarum imagines antelatse sunt, sed pra^- fulgebant Cassius atque Brutus, et eo ipso quod effigies eorum non vickbantur." The universal burst of public enthusiasm when the tricolour flag was rehoisted on the Tuileries, and the statue cf the hero replaced on the pillar in the Place Vendome, in July last, and the innumerable pictures and statues which have been exposed in every town and village of France since the prohibition was removed, demonstrate how powerful and gene- ral this feeling was, and expose the enormity of the error which the Bourbons committed in endeavouring to bury it in oblivion. The tricolour flag was associated in the minds of the whole young and active part of the French population with the days of their glory; the white standard with the commencement of their humiliation. To compel them to adopt the one and abandon the other, was an error in policy of the most enormous kind. It was to perpetuate the feeling of national disgrace ; to impose upon the nation what they con- sidered as the livery of servitude ; to debar them from openly giving vent to feelings which swelled their hearts even to bursting. The Revolution of July was less against the edicts of Polignac than the white standard on the dome of the Tuileries ; and the Citizen King owes his throne mainly to the tricolour flag which waves above his head in that au- gust abode. 3. The religious feelings of the exiled fam- ily, natural and estimable in persons exposed to the calamities which they had undergone, was undoubtedly an inherent weakness in the government of the Restoration, to which their fall was in a great degree owing. From what- ever cause it may have arisen, the fact is cer- tain, that hatred at everj^ species of religious observance is the most profound and invete- rate feeling which has survived the Revolution. Not that the French are wholly an irreligious people ; for in a numerous portion of the community, especially in the rural districts, the reverence for devotion is undiminished, naj% is now visibly on the increase ; but that the active and energetic class in towns, upon whom the centralization of power produced by the Revolution has exclusively conferred political importance and the means of influ- encing the public mind, are almost entirely of that description. To these men, the sight of priests in their sacerdotal habits crossing the Place Carousal, and entering the royal apart- ments, was absolute gall and wormwood. The royalists had not discernment enough to see, that they might encourage the substantial parts of religion, without perpetually bringing be- fore the public eye the obnoxious parts of its external ceremonial : they fell at once under the government of pious and estimable, but Weak and ignorant ecclesiastics, who were totally incapable of steering the vessel of the ctate through the shoals and quicksands with which it was on all sides beset. Thence arose an inherent weakness in the government of the Restoration, which went' far to counter- balance the vast political authority which the centralization of every species of influence in the public offices in Paris had occasioned. They received a machine of vast power, and apparently irresistible strength, but the preju- dice of the people at their political and reli- gious principles was so strong that they could not find the firm hands requisite to direct it. 4. The pacific and indolent character of the Bourbon princes, and the timorous policy which they were constrained to adopt, from the disastrous circumstances which had preceded their accession to the throne, prevented them from reviving by personal qualities or brilliant achievements, any cf that popularity which so many circumstances had contributed to weaken. A thirst for military glory ever has been the leading characteristic of the French people. A pacific and popular king of France is a contradiction in terms. The princes who dwell most strongly in their recollection, Henry IV., Louis XIV., and Napoleon, were all distinguished either for their military achievements, or the great conquests which were effected in their reign. If a king of France were to possess the virtue of Aristides, the integrity of Cato, the humanity of Marcxxs Aurelius, and the wisdom of Solomon, and re- main constantly at peace, he would speedily become unpopular.* The only regal activity which, in their estimation, can in some degree compensate the want of military distinction, is a decided turn for the embellishment of Paris. Napoleon's vast popularity, after his external victories, was mainly owing- to his internal decorations; the Pillar of Austerlitz and the Bourse, almost rivalled, in public effect, the overthrow of Austria and the sub- jugation of Prussia. But in neither of these lines of activity was the family of the Restora- tion calculated to acquire a distinction. They remained, partly from inclination, partly from necessity, almost constantly at peace ; they languidly and slowly completed the great works undertaken by Napoleon, but commenced little new themselves; they neither pushed their armies across the Rhine, nor their new con- structions into the obscurer parts of Paris. The Parisians could neither recount to stran- gers the victories they had won, nor point with exultation to the edifices they had constructed. They remained, in consequence, for the whole fifteen years that they sat upon the jthrone, tolerated and obe3'ed, biU neither admired nor loved; and the loadof obloquy which attached to them from the disasters which preceded their acces'Jion, was lightened by no redeem- ing achiev;ments which followed their ele\'^- tion. From the combination of these singular ana opposing circumstances, there resulted a mixed and tempered government in France, for the brief period of the Restoration, without any of the circumstances existing, by which that blessing can be permanently secured, — without either a powerful aristocracy, or an efficient and varied representation of the people. The machine of government was that of an abso- *Mr. Burke was perfertly riclit wlien lie said, that the restored monarch must be constantly in tlie saddle. I4U ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. lute despotism, from the complete centraliza- tion of every species of influence in the public offices at Paris, and the total absence of any authority in the provinces to counterbalance their influence ; but the royal family had neither the energy nor the qualities, nor the fortune, requisite to wield its irresistible pow- ers. Nothing can be more extraordinary, ac- cordingly, than the state of France under Louis XVIIL and Charles X. The government were almost constantly declining in popularity; the republican majority in the Chamber of Deputies was, with some variations, almost constantl)' increasing; at last it rose to such a height as to choke up the wheels of adminis- tration, and render a coup d'etat, or a resignation of the throne, an unavoidable alternative. But although the Family of the Bourbons was thus declining in influence, the power of government U'as undergoing no serious alteration ; no eflicient checks upon the executive, arising from the combination of the lasting interests of the state to coerce its encroachment, were ^rowing up ; the weakness of the throne arose from dislike to the reigning family, not aver- sion to the power with which they were in- vested. They were at last overturned, like the sultans in the Seraglio, or the Roman em- perors on the Palatine Mount, by a vast and well-concerted urban tumult, seconded to a wish b}' the imbccilitj'' and weakness of the ruling administration ; and the vast machine of a despotic government passed unimpaired into the hands of their more energetic assail- ants. The Revolution of the Barricades at once put an end to the temporizing system of the Restoration, and drew aside the veil which, re- tained by Bourbon weakness, had so long con- cealed the stern features of despotic power. The fatal succession, bequeathed to France, by the sins and the atrocities of the lirst Revo- lution, was then apparent; the bonds, the inevitable and perpetual bonds of servitude, were exposed to public gaze. In all the par- ticulars which constituted the weakness of the Restoration, and paral3-zed the machine of des- potic government, from hatred at the hands which wielded it, the Citizen King had the ad\'antage. The white flag had been a per- petual eye-sore to the ardent }'outh of France, and the white flag was torn down : the tricolour had been the object of their secret worship, and the tricolour was displayed from every tower in France: the recollection of defeat had clouded the first days of the Restoration, and the first days of the Revolution of July were those of astounding triumph : the observance of Sunday and religious forms had exasperated an infidel metropolis, under a priest-ridden d3''nasty ; and their successors allowed them to revel in every species of amusement and license on the seventh day: the long con- tinuance of peace had thrown into sullen dis- content the ardent youth of the metropolis ; and the establishment of a revolutionary throne promised, sooner or later, to bring about a despnrate conflict with the logilimatc monarchs of Europe. The prospect of llie convulsions iiito which England was speedily thrown by tlie contagion of this great example, contri- buted not a little to fan this exulting flame, and in the passing of the Reform Bill, tha French democrats beheld a lasting triumph to the Galilean party in this country, and an achievement which consoled them for the disasters of Trafalgar and Waterloo. These combined circumstances completely restored the vigour and efficiency of the cen- tral authority at Paris over all France. In possession of a frame of government the strongest and most despotic of any in Europe^ supported by the ardent and influential part of the population in the capital, fanned by the gales of public passion and prejudice, they speedily became irresistible. Every thing con- tributed to increase the power of government. The public hatred at hereditary succession, which forced on the abolition of the House of Peers and the appointment of their successors by the crown, demolished the last barrier (and it was but a feeble one) which the preceding convulsions had left between the throne and universal dominion. The public impatience for war, Avhich made them bear without mur- muring an increase of the national expendi- ture, on the accession of Louis Philippe, from 980,000,000 francs to 1,511,000,000 in one year, enabled the government to raise the army from 180,000 to 420,000 men, and fan the military spirit through all France, by the establishment of National Guards. The Chamber of Depu- ties, thrown into the shade by the tricolour flag, and the reviews in the Place Carousel, was soon forgotten; its members, destitute, for the most part, of propertj', consideration, or weight in their respective departments, speedily fell into contempt; the opposition was gained over or withdrew in despair from a hopeless cause ; and a party which, under the white flag, and the priest-ridden government, had risen to a majority in the legislature, was soon reduced to a miserable remnant of six or eight members. The debates in the Chamber have almost disappeared; they are hardly ever re- ported; all eyes are turned from the legisla- ture to the war-oflSce; from the declamations of disappointed patriots, to the acclamations of brilliant battalions; from a thought on the extinction of public freedom, to the exhilarating prospect of foreign conquest. It is this combination of a despotic executive in possession of all the influence in the state, with the infusion of popularity into the sys' tern of government, which has enabled Louis Philippe, aided by his own great abilit\', not- withstanding his extreme personal unpopularity, to carry through obnoxious and tyranr.ical measures never contemplated by Napoleoi in the zenith of his power. One of the most re- markable of these, is the encircling Paris with fortified posts, or, as the republicans call it, the project " d'embastiller Paris." To those who recollect the transports of enthusiasm with which the storming of the Bastile was re- ceived over all France in 1789, it must appear the most extraordinary of all things, that a revolutionary government should venture upon the step of constructing Ten Bastiles, many larger, all stronger, than the old one, around Paris, in such situation, as absolutely to command the metropolis, by enabling th« FRANCE IN 1833. UI government, at pleasure, to intercept its sup- plies of provisions; yet this has been done, and is now doing. Vincennes, situated a league beyond the Barricade de Trone, is undergoing a thorough repair; and its cannon, placed within a regular fortification, will com- pletely command the great road leading into the Fauxbourg St. Antoine. Other, and simi- lar fortresses, are in the course of construction, in a circle round Paris, at the distance of about two miles from each other, and a mile, or a mile and a half beyond the external barrier. When completed, they will at once give the government the command of the rebellious capital; not a pound of provisions can enter a circle inhabited by nearly a million of souls, but under the guns of these formidable for- tresses. The plans were completed, the ground was all purchased, the works were going for- ward, when they were interrupted by the cries of part of the National Guard, in defiling be- fore the king on the 29th July last. The Chamber of Deputies had in vain refused, in accordance with the wishes of the capital, a grant of money for the purpose; the crown was going on of its own authority, and from its own funds. And though the undertaking has been suspended for a time from the cause above mentioned, excepting at Vincennes, .vhicn is rapidly advancing, government openly announce their intention of resuming it next spring, when a majority of the Chamber will be won over to give it their support.* The most singular circumstance connected with the present political state of France, is the co-existence of a despotic military govern- ment, with a wild and intemperate republican press in the capital. This may appear in- credible, but nevertheless it is certain that it exists ; and it constitutes an element by no means to be overlooked, in considering its future prospects, because it may, in a moment, hurl the present dynasty from the throne, and elevate a new familj^ or different executive, to the possession of its despotic powers. To give only a single example of the length to which this extravagance is carried, we select by mere chance, an article which recently appeared in tlie Tribune. " Those who place themselves in the current of political change shouldconsiderwell whither it will lead them, before they embark on its waves. The authors of the revolt on the 9th Thurmidor,f were far from intending to extin- guish public freedom ; but, nevertheless, the reaction against liberty has been incessant since the fall of Robespierre, with the excep- tion perhaps of the Three Days of July. "It is in vain to say that it was Napoleon, or the Restoration, or Louis Philippe, who ex- tinguished the freedom of France: it was the overthrow of Robespierre which was the fatal stroke. We have never since known what liberty was, we have lived only under a suc- -.ession of tyrants. "Impressed with these ideas, a band of pa- triots have commenced the republication of the • It )|as since been completed by the aid of the war party, headed by JM. Tliiers. f The day when Robespierre was overthrown speeches of Robespierre, St. Just, and Marat, which will be rendered accessible to the very humblest of the people, by the moderate price of a sous a number, at which it is to be sold. We earnestly recommend the works of these immortal patriots to our readers. They will find every thing that philosophy could discover, or learning reveal, or humanity desire, or elo- quence enforce, in their incomparable produc- tions." — Tribune, Aug. 20. Again, in the next number we read as fol- lows : — "The soi-disant patriots of the day are in a total mistake when they pretend that it is an erroneous system of taxation which is the root of the public discontents. This is no doubt an evil, but it is nothing compared to that Avhich flows from a defective system of social organization. " The tyranny of the rich over the poor is the real plague which infests society ; the eter- nal source of oppression, in comparison of which all others are but as dust in the balance. What have we gained by the Revolution 1 The substitution of the Chausee d'Antin for the Fauxbourg St. Germain. An aristocracy of bankers for one of nobles. What have the people gained by this change 1 Are they bet- ter fed, or clothed,, or lodged, than before "! What is it to them that their oppressors are no longer counts or dukes 1 Tyranny can come from the bureau as well as the palace: — there will be no real regeneration to France till a more equal distribution of rnoPEHTT strikes at the root of all the calamities of mankind. " The principles of pure and unmixed de- mocracy are those of absolute wisdom, of unwearied philanthropy, of universal happi- ness. When the rule of the people is com pletely established, the reign of justice, free dom, equality, and happiness will commence; all the evils of humanity will disappear before the awakened energies of mankind." — Tribune, Aug. 21. When principles such as these, clothed in insinuating language, and enforced with no small share of ability, are daily poured forth from the Parisian press, and read by admiring multitudes among its ardent and impassio^ied population, we are led to examine how society can exist with such doctrines familiarly spread among the lower orders. But the phenomenon becomes still more extraordinary, when it is perceived that these anarchical doctrines arc in close juxtaposition to the most completa and rigorous despotism to which the people under successive governments submit without any practical attempt at resistance ; that the citizens who indulge in these absurd specu- lations are content to wait for hours at the police office, before they can go ten leagues from the capital, and go quietly to jail with the first gens d'armes who meet them on the road without their passports. The truth is, that the French, during all the phases of the Revolution, as Napoleon re- marked, not only never tasted one hour of real freedom, but never formed a conception of what it was. The efforts of the factions who for forty years have torn its bosom, have all 143 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. been directed to one object, the arquisilion of polilidil power by tliemsclccs, without bestowing a thotiffht on the far more important matter of how that power is to be restrained towards others. The consequence is, that the exertions of the party in opposition are all directed to one object, the displacin:^ of their adversaries fi-om their places in administration, or over- turning the family on the throne, without the slightest intention of remodelling the frame of government, so as to impose any effectual check on the executive. If the republican opposition were to succeed to the helm, they would probably push through such a change in the composition of the electoral colleges, as might secure for their party the predominance in the legislature, but they would make as few concessions to public freedom as was done by (heir predecessors Robespierre and St. Just. The police would still fetter the actions of every man in France; the impdt foucicrcwoviM still carry off from thirteen to twenty per cent, of every income from property; the govern- ment officers at Paris would still dispose of every office in the kingdom, from the minister at the head of the army, to the scavenger at the tail of the cleaning departm.ent. The parly in opposition, who long for the enjoyment of power and offices, has been im- mensely weakened by the result of the Three Days. The royalists, indeed, are everj'where excluded from the slightest participation in the government; but so are they from any in- fluence in the legislature; and a miserable minority of twenty or thirty members finds it quite in vain to attempt any struggle in par- liament. The great body of the popular party have got into olfice in consequence of their triumph : it may safely be affirmed that not less than 300,000 liberals are now the employes irr civil government alone. Thus the patriots of France are now ver}- generally and com- fortably ensconced in official situations ; and it is utterly impossible, in consequence, to rouse them to any hostility to the ruling power. In this way the republican party are, to a great extent, won over to the government, and they can afford to allow the disappointed remnant of their faction to vent their discontent in de- mocratic publications. This complete division of the liberal party, and secure anchoring of four-fifths of its members by the strong tenure of official emolument, which has followed the Revolution of July, is the true secret of the present strength of government; for the dis- contented royalists in the provinces, though numerous and brave, will never be able to throw off" the central authority of the capital. It is not to be imagined, however, from all this, that the government of Louis Philippe is established on a solid foundation. No govern- ment can be so, which is founded not on the great and lasting interests of the state, but its fleeting passions — which depends not on the property of the country, but the mob of the metropolis. The throne of the Barricades rests entirely on the armed force of the capital. " A breath may unmake it, as a breath has made." A well-concerted urban revolt, the defection of a single regiment, supported by a majority of the National Guards, may any day seat a consul, a general, or Henry V. on the throne. It has lost popularity immensely with the movement party, ok* o/n^rf, comprehend ing all the ardent and desperate characters, by persisting in an anti-republican policy, and remaining steadily at peace. Its incessant and rigorous prosecution of the press, though inadequate hitherto to extirpate that last re« main of popular sovereignty, has exposed it to the powerful assaults of that mighty engine. The sovereign on the throne, and the whole royal family, are neglected or disliked, not- withstanding the great abilities of its head and estimable qualities of many of its members. A vigorous and successful foreign war would at once restore its popularity, and utterly silence all the clamour about the loss of free- dom ; but without the aid of that powerful stimulant, it is impossible to say how soon the present dynasty may be overturned, and a fresh race or government be thrown up by an- other eruption of the revolutionary volcano'. But come what race or form of sovereignty there may, the government of Paris will equally remain a perfect and uncontrolled despotism over France. This is the great and final re- sult of the first Revolution, which should ever be kept steadily in view by the adjoining states. Let Henry V. or the Duke of Orleans, Marshal Soult, or Odillon Barrot, succeed to supreme power, the result will be the same. The bones of Old France have been broken by the vast rolling-stone which has passed over the state; New France has not the elements within it to frame a constitutional throne. The people must remain slaves to the central government, because they have destroyed the superior classes who might shield them from its oppression. Asiatic has succeeded to European civilization, and political power is no longer to be found independent of regal appointment. All supe- riority depends upon the possession of office ; the distinctions of hereditary rank, the descent of considerable property, have alike disap- peared ; over a nation of ryots, who earn a scanty subsistence by the sweat of their brow, is placed a horde of Egjqitian taskmasters, who wring from them the fruits of their tov! and a band of Prwtorian guards who dispose at pleasure of their government. In one particular, little understood on the English side of the Channel, the similarity of the result of French regeneration to the in- stitutions of Oriental despotism, is most strik- ing. The weight of iHred taxation is at once the mark and the result of despotic govern- ment. It is remarked by Gibbon, that the great test of the practical power of government is to be found in the extent to which it can carry the (Jircrt paymoitshy the people to the treasury; and that whenever the majority of imposts are indirect, it is a proof that it is compelled to consult the inclinations and feelings of its sub- jects. He adduces as an illustration of this profound yet obvious remark, (all profound remarks, when once made, appear obvious,) the excessive weight of direct taxation in the latter period of the Roman empire. In Gaul, in the time of Constantine, the capitation-tax had risen to the enormous sum of nine poundl sterling for every freeman ; an impost so ci FRANCE IN 1833. 143 t;essive,.that among the poorer citizens it could be made up only by several being allowed to club together to form one head. Sismondi, in like manner, observes, that the exorbitant weight of direct taxes was the great cause of the progressive depopulation of the Roman empire. At this moment the burden of the fixed payment exacted from a Turkish pashalic which is never allowed to diminish, and con- sequently with the decline of the inhabitants becomes intolerable, is the great cause of the rapid depopulation of the Ottoman empire. In Hindostan and China, the proportion of the fruits of the soil which goes directly to the government varies from 30 to 50 per cent. Akin to this, the last and well-known result of despotic oppression, is the enormous weight of the direct taxes in France. The tax on proprietors is fixed at present at \3 per cent.: but this, oppressive as it would appear in this country, v.-here the weight of democratic des- potism is only beginning to be felt, is nothing to the real burden which falls on the unhappy proprietors. By the valuation or cadastre made jjy the government surveyor, the real weight of the burden is liable to indefinite increase, and in general brings it up to 20, sometimes 30 per cent.* The valuation is taken, not from the actual receipt of the owner, but what it is estimated his property is worth ; and as the smiles of government are directed towards these ofiicial gentlemen nearly in proportion to the amount to which they can raise the valuation of their district, the injustice com- mitted in this way is most extreme. We know many properties on the Garonne and Rhone, where, from the exorbitance of the valuation, the tax comes to 35 and 40 per cent, on the produce. Its weight may be judged of by the fact, that this direct impost produces yearly 350,000,000 francs, or about 14,000,000/. ster- ling, which almost entirely comes from the land-owners.f Now the income-tax of Great Britain during the war produced just that sum ; and most certainly the income from all sources of the British empire at that period was double the amount of that now enjoyed by the landed proprietors of France.^ The result of this is, that the French land-owners pay, on the whole, 20 per cent, on the annual worth of their in- comes. In forty years from the commencement of their revolutionary troubles, the French have got nearly to the standard fixed on the 'yots of Hindostan, in the lightest taxed dis- cricts of India ; and more than tripled the faille, which was held forth as an insupportable burden at their commencement ! Let ihem go on as they are doing, and in half a century they will again find the enormous capitation- ♦ Fi'om the infinite subdivision of land in France, and the continual cliange of hands throush which it passes, it in fact belonss iir property to no one individual, but to the Public Treasury, from the excessive weiirht of direct taxation •and the duties on alienations of any kind. — JJovnadieu, 256. fDupin estimates the income of proprietors in France at 1,626,000.000 francs, or 65,000,000^, so that if 350,000,000 francs, or 14,000,000?. sterling, is taken from them in the form of direct taxes, the burden is as 14 to 66 on their whole income, or 21 per cent.— See Dupin, Force Com- merciale de France, ii. 266. tThe income of official persons is taken at a different rate, varyins; from 6h to 8 per cent.; bulitformsatrlfliiii; part of the direct taxation. tax of Constantino fixed about their necirs. Thus the result of human folly and iniquity is the same in all ages and countries ; and the identical consequences which flowed fifteen hundred years ago, remotely but surely, frcm the madness of Gracchus and the democrats of Rome, in destroying the Roman aristocracy is evidently approaching, though with infinite- ly swifter steps from the corresponding mad- ness of the French republicans in extirpatir.g the higher classes of their monarchy. We have often asked the proprietors in dif- ferent parts of France, why they did not en- deavour to diminish or equalize this enormous burden, Avhich, in the wine provinces especial- ly, is felt as so oppressive 1 They universally answered, that the thing was impossible; that they had memorialized Napoleon and Louis XVIII., the Chamber of Deputies and Peers, Villele and the Due de Richelieu, but all to no purpose. The weight of the itnpot fonciere, the injustice of the cadastre, remains imchanged and unchangeable. Four or five millions of little proprietors, scattered over the vast ex- panse of France, a majority of whom have not 5/. yearly from their land, can effect nothing against the despotic central government of Paris. They themselves sa)^, that the direct burdens on the land are becoming so excessive, that the sovereign is, as in Oriental dynasties, the real proprietor, and they are but tenants who labour for his benefit more than their OAvn. Herein may be discerned the hand of Provi- dence, causing the sins of men to work out their OAvn punishment. If the French people had not committed the frightftil injustice of confiscating the property of their nobles and clergy, they would now have possessed within themselves a vast body of influential proprie- tors, capable, as in England, under the old Constitution, either in the Upper or Lower House, of preventing or arresting the oppres- sion of the central government, and the enor- mous burden of 20 per cent, directly laid on land would never have been permitted. But proceeding, as they have done, by destroying all the intermediate classes in the state, and leaving only government employes and peasant proprietors, they have cut away the shield which would have protected the poor from the vexation of the central authority, and left them- selves and their children for ever exposed to its oppression. They imagined that by laying hold of the land of others, they would step into the comforts and opulence of separate proper- ty ; but the wages of iniquity seldom prosper in the end, either in nations or individuals. They have fallen in consequence imder an oppressive taxation, which has more than counterbalanced all the advantages of the spoil they have acquired ; the sovereign has grown up into the real land-owner, and the cultivators, instead of becoming the peasants of Switzer- land, have degenerated into the lyots of Hin- dostan. The effects of the Revolution of July on the Religiox of France, is precisely the same as on its political situation. It has draira aside the thin veil which concealed the effects of the irreligious spirit of the first convulsion and displayed in its native deformity the con 144 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. sequence of unmooring the human mind from the secure haven of faith and virtue. That tiie first Kevolution Avas essentially irreligious in its spirit, that it destroyed not only the teachers and the property, but the very name of Christianit}-, is universally known. Bat in this, as in every other respect, the Restoration drew a veil over its ultimate and final consequences. The exiled family returned to the palaces of their fathers, with a profound sense of religion, rendered only the more indelible from the disasters which had preceded their restoration. By the combined effect of their authority and influence, a gloss was thrown over the infidel consequences of the first Revolution; thepriests were reinstated in the smiles of court favour; the Tuileries again resounded with the strains of devotion; religious observances nvere tolerabl)' attended to ; the churches were filled, if not with the faithful, at least with the ambitious, and pro- motion, dependent in some degree on attention to the ceremonial of the Catholic faith, drew multitudes to the standard of St. Louis. Marshal Soult was to be seen every Sunday parading to church, preceded b)'-an enormous breviary ; he cared not whether the road to poM'cr lay by the chapel of the Virgin, or the altar of the Goddess of reason. Sunday, especially in the last ten years, was well observed in the great towns. Travellers perceived no material dif- ference between the appearance of London and Paris during divine service. Literature, encouraged by this transient glance of sun- shine, resumed its place by the side of de- votion ; the mighty genius of Chateaubriand lent its aid to the Holy Alliance, and poured over the principles of natural and revealed religion a flood of resplendent light; Michaux traced the history of the Crusaders, and the efforts for the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre, with an antiquary's knowledge and a poet's fire; Barante revived in the Annals of Bur- gundian princes, the old and venerable feel- ings of feudal devotion; while Guizot, as yet untouched by the seductions of power, traced with admirable ability, to admiring multitudes in the French metropolis, the historical bless- ings of religious institutions. Almost all ob- servers, misled by these appearances, flattered themselves, that the period of the reaction of the human mind against the principles of ir- religion had arrived ; that the reign of infideli- ty was drawing to its close; and that the French Revolution, nursed amidst the mazes of sophistry and skepticism, was destined to find refuge at last in the eternal truths of religion. But this sudden extinction of evil and resur- rection of good is not the order of nature. Infitlelit}'-, nursed for half a century, is not ex- tinguished in a few years. The robbery of one-third of the national property from the service of the church is not the way to secure the fruits of virtue : a hiatus of ten years in the religious education of the people, snapped asunder a chain which had descended un- broken from the apostolic ages. These deplo- rable events were secretly but securely work- ing out their natural consequences, through all The general the period of the Restoration. and profound hatred in towns at the very sight even of an ecclesiastic, was a certain indica- tion of the great extent to which the deadly weeds of infidelity had spread. The Revolu- tion of July at once tore aside the veil, and exposed to view the extraordinary spectacle of a nation in which the classes who concen- trate almost the whole political influence of the stale, are almost wholly of an irreligicus character. This is to be ascribed chiefly to the long chasm in religioiis instruction which took place from 1791 to 1800, and the entire assumption of political power under Napo- leon, by a class who were entire strangers to any kind of devotion. Such a chasm cannot readily be supplied ; ages must elapse before its effects are obliterated. " Natura tamen," says Tacitus, "infirmitatis humana? tardiora sunt remedia quam mala, et ut corpora lente augescunt cito extinguuntur, sicingeniastudia- que oppresseris facilius quam revocaveris." But to whatever cause it is owing, nothing can be more certain, than that infidelitj^ again reigns the lord of the ascendant in Paris. It is impossible to be a week in the metropolis without being sensible of this. It is computed that from sixty to eighty thousand individuals, chiefly old women, or persons of the poorest classes, believe in the Christian religion. The remainder, amounting to about eight hundred thousand, make no pretension to such a faith. They do not deny it, or say or think anything about it; they pass it by as a doubtful relic of the olden time, now entirely gone by.* It is impossible by any external appearances to distinguish Sunday from Saturday, excepting that every species of amusementanddissipation goes on with more spirit on that day that any other. We are no advocates for the over-rigid or Judaical observance of the day of rest Perhaps some Protestant nations have gone too far in converting the Christian Sunday into the Jewish Sabbath, and preventing on it those innocent recreations which might divert the giddy multitude from hidden debauchery. But without standing up for any rigid or puri- tanical ideas, it may safely be affirmed that the toUil neglect of Sunday by nine-tenths of the people, indicates a fixed disregard of religion in any state professing a belief in Christianity. In Paris the shops are all open, the carts all going, the workmen all employed on the early part of Simday ; and although a part of them are closed after two o'clock in the afternoon, it is not with the slightest intention of joining in any, even the smallest religious duty, that this is done. It is "pour s'amuser," to forget the fatigues of the week in the excitement with M'hich it terminates, that the change takes place. At two o'clock, all who can disengage themselves from their daily toil, rush away in crowds to drink of the intoxicating cup of pleasure. Then the omnibusses roll with ceaseless din in every direction out of the crowded capital, carrying the delighted citi- zens to St. Cloud, St. Germains, or "Versailles, the Ginguctles of Belleville, or the gardens of Vincennes; then the Boulevards teem with volatile and happy crowds, delighted by the ♦ In this, as in many other rcspncts, a most gratifying change has, since 1833, begun in France. FRANCE IN 1833. 145 enjoyment of seeing and being seen ; then the gardens of the Tuileries and the Luxembourg, the Jardiu des Plantes, and the Champs Ely- sees, are enlivened with the young, the gay, and the handsome, of both sexes, both rich and poor; then the splendid drive to the triumphal arch of Neuille, is filled with the comparative- ly few equipages which the two Revolutions have left to the impoverished hotels of the capital. While these scenes of ga)'-ety and amusement are going on, the priests in each of the principal churches are devoutly per- forming mass before a few hundred old wo- men, tottering ecclesiastics, or j^oung children, and ten or fifteen Protestant churches are as- sembling as many thousands to the duties of the reformed faith. Such is a Parisian Sun- day; and such the respect for a divine ordi- nance, which remains in what they ambi- tiously call the metropolis of European civili- zation. As evening draws on, the total disregard of religious observance is, if possible, still more conspicuous. Never is ihe opera filled with such enthusiastic crowds as on Sunday even- ing; — never are the theatres of the Port St. Martin, the Boulevards, the Opera Comique, the Vaudeville and the Varietes, so full as on that occasion ; — never are the balls beyond the barriers so crowded ; — never is Tivoli so en- livening, or the open air concerts in the Champs Elysees .thronged by so many thou- sands. On Sunday evening in Paris there seems to be but one wish, one feeling, one desire, — and that is, to amuse themselves ; and by incessantly labouring at that one object, they certainly succeed in it to an extent that could hardly be credited in colder and more austere latitudes. The condition of the clergy over France is, generally speaking, depressed and indigent in the extreme. The Constituent Assembly, who decreed the annexation of the whole property of the church to the state, and declared " that they intrusted the due maintenance of reli- gion and the succour of the poor to the honour of the great nation," redeemed their pledge, by giving most of the incumbents of the rural parishes from 48/. to GOl. a year. Bishops have 6000 francs, or 240/., yearly. The arch- bishop of Paris alone has 600/. In some of the town parishes, the incumbents, from sub- sequent endowments or adventitious sources, have from 200/. to 300/. per annum ; but, ge- nerally speaking, their income, in the richest parishes, varies from 80/. a year to 120/.; in the poorest, it is only from 40/. to 50/. It may safely be affirmed, that the clergy of France, taken as a body, are poorer than the school- masters of England and Scotland. The efi!"ect of this is seen in the most striking manner in the appearance of the rural land- scape of France. You generally, in the vil- lages, see a parish church, the bequest to the nation of the pious care of their forefathers ; but great numbers of tjiese are in a ruinous or tottering condition. There is an evident want of any funds to keep them up. The most trifling repairs of a church, as every "thing else in France, must be executed by the government; and the ministers of Louis 10 Philippe seem to think that this is one of the articles upon which economy can best be practised. But a parsonage-house, or any sort of separate residence for the cure, is never to be seen. He is, in general, boarded in the houses of some farmer or small pro- prietor; and in habits, society, education, manners, and rank of life, is in no respect above the peasantry by Avhom he is sur- rounded. It is not to be imagined from this, however, that the country clergy are either ignorant or inattentive to their sacred duties ; on the con- traiy, they are most assiduous in discharging them, and are, in general, justly endeared to their flocks, not only by an irreproachable life, but the most constant and winning attentions. It would be unjust to expect in them the high education, gentlemanlike manners, or enlightened views of the English clergj'; or the more discursive but useful information which is to be met with in the manses of the Presbyterian ministers in Scotland. We must not expect to see either Hebers, or Copple- stones, or Bucklands, or Blairs, or Robertsons, or Chalmerses, in the modern churclj of France. The race of Bossuet and Fenelon, of Massil- Ion and Bourdaloue, of Flechier and Saurin. of Pascal and Malebranche, is extinct. The church is cast down into an inferior class in society. No one would make his son an ec- clesiastic, who could obtain for him a situation in a grocer's shop. But, in the present state of the country, it is perhaps as well that this is the case. The reformation of the corrupted higher orders in the towns, is out of the ques- tion ; and if a priesthood, drawn from their ranks, were to be established, it would speedily draw to itself such a load of infidel obloquy, as would lead to its destruction. Bat the poor and humble parish priests are overlooked and despised by the arrogant liberals in possession of oflice and power; and, like their predeces- sors in the apostolic ages, they are, unob- served, laying the foundation of a spirit destined, in a future age, to overturn the insti- tutions of their haughty oppressors, and efl^ect that real regeneration of society, which can be found only in the reformation of the morals and principles of its members.* The abject poverty of the rural clergy in most parts of the rural districts of France, is a most painful object of contemplation to an English traveller. There is scarce any pro- vision for them in sickness or old age ; and when they are compelled, by either of these causes, to divide their scanty income with a more robust assistant, their condition becomes truly pitiable. In most cathedral churches is to be seen a box, with the inscription " Tronc pour les malheureux pretres ;" a few sous are thankfully received by the religious teachers of the great nation. One of these boxes is to be seen on the pillars of Notre Dame ; another under the gorgeous aisle of Rouen ; a third in the graceful choir of Amiens ; a fourth dis- graces the generation who pass under the splendid portals of Rheims, and » *'lh, that *The chanje here predicted has since taken place W a great extent in France. us ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. \ which points with deserved pride to the match- .ess Tiiwer of Cliarlres. A supeificial observer who should judge of the relii,'ious state of France from the appear- ance of its great towns, however, would be far wide of the truth. It is a total mistake to sup- pose that devotion is extinct, or in the process of extinction among its country inhabitants. It is in the great towns that infidelit}^ reigns tri- umphant; — it is among the young, the active, and the profligate citizens of despotic Paris, that religion is the subject of ridicule. It is true this class are now in the exclusive possession of political power; it is true several hundred thousand of them are dispersed over the mighty net which envelopes France in the meshes of the capital ; it is true that they direct literature, and influence thought, and stamp its character upon the nation, in the estimation of foreign states : slill they are not in possession of the mighty lever which directs the feelings of the rural inhabitants. As long as forty-eight thou- sand parish priests, overlooked from their po- verty, despised from their obscurity, contempt- ible to this world from their limited information, are incessantly and assiduously employed in diflfusing religious belief through the peasantry, the extirpation of Christianity in France is im- possible. Its foundations are spreading the deeper — its influences becoming more para- mount in the uncorrupted provinces, from the total neglect into which it has fallen with the influential classes in the capital. It is impos- sible to enter any parish church in any part of the provinces, Avilhout being sensible that a large and increasing portion of the peasantry are Strongly and profoundly impressed with reli- gious feelings. In this state of things, the eye of philanthropy, without pretending to the gift of prophecy, can perhaps discern the elements brewing which are destined, in some future age, to produce another Revolution, — an insur- rection of the provinces against the capital, — a real regeneration of society, by the infusion of rural simplicity and virtue into urban cor- ruption and degeneracy, — a termination of the convulsion, which commenced by casting down religion, in the triumph of the faith which ga- thers strength from misfortune. But whether this is to be the final result, or whether, as is perhaps more probable, the utter prostration of the internal liberties of the nation, through the consequences of the Revolution, is to lead to the loss of its external independence, and the regeneration of southern weakness by a race of northern conquerors ; one thing is cer- tain, and may be confidently prophesied, that France will never know what real freedom is, till her institutions are founded on the basis of religion, and that with the triumph of the faith which her Liberals abhor, and have cast down, is indissolubly wound up the accomplishment of the objects which they profess to have at heart. The Morals of France are in the state which might be expected in a country which has bro- ken asunder all the bonds of society, and de- spises all the precepts of religion. Pleasure und excitement are the general subjects of jdolatrj' — money, as the key to them, the uni- vTsal object. This desire for wealth is per- haps more strongly felt in Paris, and forms the great passion of life more completely, than in any other capital in Europe, because there are more objects of desire presented to the en< tranced senses which cannot be gained in any other way ; and of the prevalence of this desire the great extent of its gaming-houses affords ample proof. But money is not the object of desire to the Parisian, as to the Dutchman or Englishman, from any abstract passion for ac- cumulation, or any wish to transmit, by a life of economy, an ample patrimony to his ch:.- dren. It is for the sake of present and immedi- ate gratification ; that he may go more fre- quently to the opera, or indulge more liberally in the pleasures of the Ginguette ; that his wife and daughters may be more gaily dressed on Sundays, and their Tivoli parties be more bril- liant, that money is so passionately coveted. The efforts made b)'' all classes to gain a live- lihood, and the prodigious obstacles which competition throws in their M-ay, are perhaps greater in Paris than in any other metropolis of Europe. " Quwrenda est pecunia primum, virtus post nummos," is the general maxim of life. But still there is little accumulation of capital, comparatively speaking, within its walls. As fast as money is made, it is spent; either in the multifarious objects of desire which are everywhere presented to the sight, or in the purchase of rentes, or government annui- ties, which die with the holders. The propor- tion of annuitants in France is incomparably greater than in England ; and the destitution of families from the loss of their head, exists to a painful and unheard of extent. Pleasure and excitement are the universal objects ; the maxims of Epicurus the general observance. To enjoy the passing hour — to snatch from existence all the roses Avhich it will afford, and disquiet themselves as little as possible about its thorns, is the grand principle of life. The state of Paris in this respect has been well described by a late enlightened and eloquent author — " Paris is no longer a city which belongs to any one nation or people: it is in many re- spects the metropolis of the world ; the ren- dezvous of all the rich, all the voluptuous on the face of the earth. For them its artists, as- sembled from every quarter of Europe, imagine or invent every day fresh objects of excitement or desire ; for them they build theatres, and multiply indefinitely all the ephemeral novel- ties calculated to rouse the senses and stimu- late expense. There every thing may be pur- chased, and that too under the most alluring form. Gold is the only divinity which is wor- shipped in that kingdom of pleasure, and it is indilTerent from what hand it flows. It is in that centre of enjoyment that all the business of France is done — that all its wealth is expended, and the fruit of its toil from one end of the kingdom to the other brought to the great central mart of pleasure. The proprie- tor wrings the last farthing out of his soil — the merchant, the notary, the advocate, flock there from all quarters to sell their capital, their re- venue, their virtue, or their talents, for plea- sure of every description, which a thousand artists iiourtray in the most s-^ducing colours FRANCE IN 1833. 147 to a nation famishing for enjoyment. And it is from that corrnpted centi-e that we are told the regeneration of the state, the progress of independence and liberty, is to flow."* As pleasure and excitement are thus the universal objects, it may readily be conceived what facilities are afibrded in the French me- tropolis for their gratification. The gaming- houses, accordingly, are innumerable; and above a third of the children b»rn within the barriers are bastards.f But those who look for excitation of that description, will not find in Paris any thing approaching to the open and undisguised profligacy of London. There is nothing in its public places approaching to the saloons of Drury Lane, or the upper circles of Covent Garden ; the Strand and Regent Street at night are infested in a way unknown even in the Boulevards Italiens, or the Rue de Richelieu. The two Revolutions have organized Ucoitioiisncss. Having become the great object of life, and, as it were, the staple commodity of the capital, it has fallen under the direction of the police. Bicnseance and decoi'um are there the order of the daj^ The sirens of pleasure are confined to a few minor theatres, and particular quarters of the town ; they abound in every street, almost in every house; but they can openly ply their vocation in ap- pointed districts only. Even the Palais Royal, the cradle of both Revolutions, has been purged of the female anarchists who were their first supporters. This is certainly a very great improvement, well worthy of imitation on the British side of the Channel. Youth and timidity are not openly assailed as they are in English great towns, and, though those who seek for dissipation will meet with it in abundance, it is not, willing or unwilling, thrust down their throats. It is possible, in the Quartier de I'Universite and remoter parts of Pari?, for young men to pursue their stu- dies, infinitely more clear of temptation than either at the London University or King's College. But while these advantages must be con- ceded to the organization and arrangements of the French police on the one hand, it is not the less certain, on the other, that all these fair appearances are merely skin-deep, and that imder this thin disguise is half concealed a mass of licentiousness probably impreceden ted in any modern state. Cei-tainly, never since the da}"s of the Roman emperors, was pleasure so uncear.irgly pursued by both sexes, as it is now at Paris ; or such efforts made to heighten tiatural desire by forced excitement, or talent and art so openly called in to lend their aid to the cause of licentiousness. Profligate books and prints exist everywhere; but in other capitals, they must be sought after to be found, and where they are, their character and appearance show that they are meant for the brutal classes, or the higher orders in their moments of brutality, only. But in Paris the case is the reverse. The treasures of know- led 2'e, the elegance of art, the fascination of genius, are daily and hourly employed in the .f bread. Astaroth appears, followed by the siren whom he has created, at the gate of the castle ; tutored by him, she descends, approaches th« saint, and employs all her art to subjugate his resolution. She oflers to bring him food in abundance from the palace, to spread a couch of down for his wearied limbs, to clothe ia rich garments his shivering frame, to abandon herself to him, if he will surrender the cruci- fix which hangs round his neck, and abjure his faith ; but the resolution of Saint Anthony is immovable. While he lies shivering and starving at the foot of the cross, a sumptuous feast is prepared before his eyes by the cooks in the palace ; the savoury flavour comes over his fainting senses; he sees it carried up to the banquet-hall, where Astaroth and his de- vils are feasting and rioting in luxurious plenty, and crawls to the gate to implore a crust of bread to assuage the intolerable pangs of hun- ger; but it is sternly refused, unless he will con- sent to part with the cross, in which case he is offered the most luxurious fare. He still re- mains firm to his faith, and while drenched by showers of snow, and starving of hunger, hears the wild and frantic revelry which pro- ceeds roimd the well-covered boards, from the brilliantly lighted rooms of the palace. Struck with such heroic resolution, the siren is melted. She is awakened by the efforts of the Virgin to a sense of virtue ; she secretly supplies him with provisions from the infernal abode ; and the daughter of perdition is won over to the league of heaven by an act of charily. In- stantly the black spot on her breast, the mark of reprobation, disappears, and her bosom regains its snowy whiteness. Astarcth and the infernal legion issue forth, frant.c with rage at the failure of their design ; they cast out their unworthy creation ; the palace, with all its treasures, is consigned to the flames, into which they plunge, leaving the saint and his lovely convert alone in the wilderness of snow. Baflied in this design, Astaroth and his league next assail the anchorite in a different way. The scene changes in the next act to the in- terior of a magnificent harem, where the saint and the converted maiden are surrounded by all the pomp of eastern luxury. The sultanas and ladies of the seraglio are seated round the walls, and the whole strength of the opera is again called forth in the entrancing dances which are there employed to captivate the senses. Astaroth causes Miranda, the maiden of his creation, to dance before the Sultan : captivated by her beauty, he throws her the handkerchief; while at the same time Astaroth endeavours to persuade the saint to murder the Sultan, on the specious pretence of setting free the numerous slaves of his passion ; Miranda seizes the dagger, exclaiming that she alone should perpetrate the deed of blood ; the Sul- tan is alarmed; the guards surround the her- mit and the maid, Avho throw themselves from the windows of the seraglio into the sea, while the demons are swallowed up in a gulf cf fire. In the opening of the last act, the anchorite is seen reposing on the grass with the maiden beside him; the demons sr.rround him during his sleep, but cannot pass the holy circle which guards the innocent. When he awakens, he finds himself enveloped on either side by le« FRANCE IN 1833. 161 gions of devils in every frightful form, and a circle of sirens Avho dance round him willi the most voluptuous movements. MeanwliiloAs- taroth has seized Miranda, and " I'a rendue victime de sa brutalitc et I'a frappe ;* the an- chorite is on the point of yielding to the se- ductions of the sirens who surround him, when Miranda, extricated from the arms of Astaroth, ruslies forward and throws the beads and cross she had removed from him over his neck. His i-eason is restored, he regains the dominion over his passion. Astaroth plunges his dagger in the breast of Miranda in despair at the total failure of his prospects. St. Mi- chael and the angels descend from heaven ; a desperate conflict ensues between the powers of light and darkness, in the close of which Astaroth and his demons are overthrown, and the saint and Miranda are borne aloft through the clouds into the bosom of the heavenly host. " Robert le Diable" is founded on a different series of adventures, but the same contest of the powers of this world with those of hell. The first act opens on the shore of the har- bour of Palermo, where Norman knights, un- der the shade of acacia trees, celebrate their mistresses, their wines, their games. Robert and his friend Bertram are seated together, when a minstrel arrives, leading a beauteous maid, his affianced bride. Robert asks him for news; he recounts the story of Robert le Diable, who was the son of Bertha, a noble maid of Normandy, who had yielded to the seduction of a demon, in the form of a hand- some stranger. Unknowingly he is reciting the tale to Robert himself, who, in a transport of rage at the narrative, is on the point of plunging his dagger into his bosom; Avhen he is restrained by his friend Bertram, who pre- vails on him to respite the minstrel for an hour. Meanwhile he promises the handsome fancee to his chevaliers ; but when she is introduced to be surrendered to their desires, he discovers in the maid, Alice, his beauteous foster-sister, the bearer of the testament of his mother, who on her deathbed had besought her to convey her last instructions to her beloved son. Ro- bert, in return, recounts to Alice his love for the fair Princess Isabella of Sicily, whom he was on the point of carrying off from her pa- rents, when he was assailed by the knights of Sicily, and only rescued by his friend Bertram. At this juncture, Bertram approaches; Alice involuntarily shudders at his sight, from the resemblance which he bears to the paintings Gf Satan combating St. Michael, but having re- covered from her alarm, undertakes to convey a letter from Robert to the Princess Isabella. The next act opens with the princess in the interior of the palace of Palermo, bewailing the loss of the faithful Robert, and her unhap- py fate, in being compelled to wed the Prince of Grenada, contrary to her inclinations. Young maidens, the bearers of petitions, are ittjroduced, among whom is Alice, who insinu- ates into her hand the letter of Robert. She consents to see him. He is introduced, and clothed by her attendants with a splendid suit ♦ Tliis, though still in the programme of the piece, Was found iti lie revoltinc, and is now omitted. of armour to enter tlie lists against the princ<* in a tournament, where her hand was to b(* tlic prize of the victor. A herald appears and defies Robert, in the name of the prince, who eagerly accepts the challenge. Bertram, who is Satan in disguise, and had clothed another demon with the form of the Prince of Grenada, smiles at the success of his projects, to win over the soul of Robert to perdition. The tournament takes place; -Isabella, by her father's orders, puts on his armour on the Prince of Grenada, but when the trumpets sound, she looks in vain for his beloved anta- gonist. Robert, restrained by the po\\-ers of hell, cannot appear. He is for ever disgraced ; Bertram beholds his schemes rapidly ap- proaching their maturity. In the third act, Bertram, pale and agitated, emerges from a cavern, the council-hall of the infernal powers : He is tormented with anxious thoughts, for he has learned the arret of Fate that his power over Robert termi- nates if he is not devoted to the powers of hell before twelve o'clock that night. There is not a moment to lose. He casts his eyes on Alice, who had come to that solitude to meet her betrothed minstrel; the demon is seized with passion, and strives to seduce her, but is repulsed with horror. She hears, how- ever, the choir of hell in the cavern invoking the name of Robert, and perceives tliat Ber- tram is Satan in disguise. By the threat of in- stant death, he compels her to promise secrecy. At this juncture Robert enters, overwhelmed with horror at his involuntary failure to ap- pear at the tournament: Alice in vain ap- proaches to Avarn him of his danger ; bound by her vow of secrecy, she is compelled to retire, leaving Robert alone to his satanic con- fidant. Bertram then informs him that his rival, the Prince of Grenada, had availed him- self of the aid of the infernal powers ; and that he never could overcome him till he had taken from the tomb of Saint Rosalie, in a neighbouring ruin, a green branch, the charmed wand which would render the lover of Isabella all-powerful. Misled by the perfidious advice, Robert enters the cavern which he is told leads to the tomb, and immediately a scene of match- less beauty succeeds. The theatre represents a ruined monastery, through the lofty desolate arches of wliich the moon throws an uncertain light. Many old tombs are scattered about on the broken pave- ment, on the top of which the marble figures of ancient worthies are seen. In the midst of them is the sepulchre of Saint Rosalie, with a branch of cypress in the hand of her marble effigy. Bertram arrives: he conjures up the shades of all the nuns who had been interred in the abbey, condemned "en punition d'une vie trop profane," to rise to aid in seducing Robert into the accomplishment of his pro- mise. Instantly the spirits rise out of their narrow beds; the marble figures, which re- clined on the monumental slabs, step forth from every part of the pavement; a hundred nuns appear dressed in their robes of white, and slowly moving forward through the gloom, surround the bewildered knight. Gradually they seem to be reanimated by the breath and 152 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. the passions of life ; they join in dances, at first slow and mystical, which insensibly warm into grace and voluptuousness. They exert all their attractions to induce Robert to ad'-'ance and seize the fated brasch. Seduced jy so many charms, he approaches the sepulchre, but starts back on seeing in the marble image of the saint a resemblance to his mother; the nuns, in encircling bands, renew their efforts to entrance his senses; he yields at length, and seizes the branch. Instantly the spell is broken; the spectres sink into their graves; the figures, late so beauteous, and animated, freeze again into lifeless marble, and the knight remains alone with tlie branch, while the sacred walls resound with the wild yells of the demons at the completion of their victory. In the fourth act, Isabella, surrounded by her maidens, is represented at her toilet dis- tributing her marriage gifts to six young women who are to be married at the same time that she espouses the Prince of Grenada. Robert appears with the green branch; its magical powers overwhelm all her attendants with lethargic slumbers ; the knight approaches and makes himself known to the princess ; in the midst of her transports, she learns by what means he had obtained the green bough, and conjures him to cast away the infernal wand; overcome by love and remorse, he breaks the branch ; the attendants instantly awaken ; as- tonished at the appearance of their lady in the arms of a stranger knight, they call in the men-at-arms ; Robert is seized, and Isabella swoons away. In the last act, Robert and Bertram appear in the vestibule of the cathedral at Palermo ; the knight recounts that he had fought the Prince of Grenada, and been vanquished by him. Bertram assures him that this fatality is owing to his fatal imprudence in breaking the branch, and that his only hope of success is to be found in subscribing an instant com- pact with the powers of darkness. At the moment when he is about to comply, strains of religious music are heard from the choir, which thrill through the heart of the wavering knight, and recall him to purer sentiments. In despair at his failure, Bertram reveals his name and character : he is Robert's father, the demon who had seduced his mother ; and he informs him, that, unless he signs the irrevo- cable deed before twelve o'clock, he loses him forever; if he does, he forthwith becomes the husband of Isabella. Robert exclaims, " L'ar- rSt est prononce, I'Enfer est le plus fort," and is just going to sign, when Alice, his foster- sister, rushes in, places in his hand the testa- ment of his mother, in which she conjures him to shun the demon Avho had ruined her; he is again shaken. A desperate struggle en- sues between Alice and Bertram, heaven and hell, in which Robert is about to yield, when twelve strikes; Bertram, with a frightful yell, descends into a gulf of fire; the veil of the sanctuary is withdrawn, Isabella appears in -he choir, where she receives the now disen- .hralled Robert, while an aerial choir celebrates he triumph of the Most High. There is one circumstance very remarkable •n these theatrical pieces, which have had so prodigious a run at the Opera, that each of them has been represented above a hundred times. Though they originate in the most 11. cenlious capital, and are exhibited to the most corrupted audience in Europe, yet they both terminate in the triumph of virtue over vice,—* of resolution over temptation, — of the graces of heaven over the powers of hell. This, in such circumstances, is very remarkable. "The excitements to the senses in both are in- numerable ; the situations and incidents such as never could have been figured but in a li- centious capital; but still the final result is the triumph of virtue, and the impression made upon the spectator on the whole de- cidedly favourable to its cause. Hypocrisy, sa)'s Rochefoucault, is the homage which vice pays to virtue : it would appear that the senti- ments of devotion, and the admiration of in- tegrity, are so strongly implanted in the hu- man mind, that many ages of corruption must elapse before they can be wholly extirpated. The French have still so much of both linger- ing in their imaginations and their associations at least, if not in their conduct, that the open disregard of them cannot be as yet tolerated in the higher theatres. Centuries of degradation, however, similar to that in which, from the re- sult of the Revolution, they ^re now placed, will work out this melancholy change, even in the country of Fenelon and Bossuet. The modern Italian drama frequently represents the hero of the piece suffering under the agonies of fear; and poltroonery is tolerated on the stage by the descendants of the Romans and Samnites. Another circitmstance which is well worth} of observation in the romantic licentious lite- rature and drama of France, is the frequent use which is made of the imager}', the language, and the characters of the Roman Catholic re- ligion. Even the Romish Calendar, and the legends of the saints, are diligently ransacked to furnish stories and situations calculated to satisfy the avidity of the Parisian public for strong emotions. It would appear that the Parisians are nov/ placed at that distance from religious belief, when they can denve ple.tsure from the lingering recollections which it awakens, without being shocked by the pro- fanity to which it is exposed. They look upon religious impressions and the Catholic tradi- tions, as the English regard the fairy tales which amused their childhood, and derive a transient stimulus from their being brought back to their recollection, as we do from see- ing Bluebeard or Cinderella on the stage. Re- ligion is as frequently the engine for moving the imagination now as classical allusions were in the last age. The French are in that stage of corruption, when they class religious imagery, and the early traditions of Scripture, with the Gothic superstition of the middle ages, — with drawbridges, knights, giants, and chi- valry, — and are delighted with their represen- tation, as we are with the feudal pictures and ancient imagery of Sir Walter Scott. The frequent introduction of religious characters and traditions in the modern works of imagi- nation in France, affords decisive evidence that they have passed from the region of be- FRANCE IN 1833. 15il lief into that of imagination; from subduing the passions, or influencing the conduct, to thrilling the imagination, and captivating the fancy. A people who entertained a sincere and practical regard for religion of any sort, never could bear to see its incidents and cha- racters blended with hobgoblins and demons, — with the spectres of the feudal, or the mytholo- gy of the classic ages. This cxtraordinarj^ change in tlie lighter branches of French literature is almost entirely the result of the late Revolution. The romantic school of fiction, indeed, had been steadily growing up under the Restoration ; and ac- cordingly, t|is dramatized tales of Sir Walter Scott had banished in all but the Theatre Francais, the works of Racine and Corneille froBi the stage. But it was not till the triumph of the Barricades had cast down the barriers of authority and influence, and let in a flood of licentiousness upon all the regions of thought, that the present intermixture of ex- travagance and sensuahty took place. Still this grievous and demoralizing effect is not to be ascribed solely or chiefly to that event, im- portant as it has been in scattering far and wide the seeds of evil. It is not by a mere prffitorian tumult in the capital that a nation is demoralized ; Rome had twenty such urban and military revolutions as that which over- threw Charles X. without experiencing any material addition to the deep-rooted sources of imperial corruption. It was the first Revolu- tion, with its frightful atrocities and crying sins, which produced this fatal efl^ect; the se- cond merely drew aside the feeble barrier which the government of the Restoration had opposed to its devastation. In the present monstrous and unprecedented state of French literature is to be seen the faithful mirror of the state of the public mind produced by that convulsion ; of that chaos of thoughts and pas- sions and recollections, which has resulted from a successful insurrection not only against the government, but the institutions and the belief of former times ; of the extravagance and frenzy of the human mind, when turned adrift, without either principle or authority to direct it, into the stormy sea of passion and pleasure. The graver and more weighty works wiiich were appearing in such numbers uryier the Restoration, have all ceased with the victory of the populace. The resplendent genius of Chateaubriand no longer throws its lustre over the declining virtue of the age: the learning and philosophy of Guizot is turned aside from the calm sneculations of history to the turbu- lent sea of" politics. Thierry has ceased to diffuse over the early ages of feudal times, the discriminating light of sagacious inciuiry: the pen of Parente conveys no longer, in clear and vivid colours, the manners of the four- teenth to the nineteenth century : Thiers, trans- formed into an ambitious politician, strives in vain, in his measures as a minister, to coun- teract the influence of his eloquent writings, as an historian : the fervent spirit of Beranger is stilled; the poetic glowof Laniartino isquench- ed ; the pictured page of Salvandy is employed only in pourtraying the deplorable state of so- eial and moral disorganization consequent on the triumph of the Barricades. Instead ot these illustrious men has sprung up a host of minor writers, who pander to the depraved taste of a corrupted age; the race of Dumas's, and Latouchcs, and Jai; ins, men who apply great talent to discreditable but ])rofitable purposes: who reflect, like the cameleon, the colours of the objects by which they are surrounded, and earn, like the opera-dancer, a transient liveli- hood, sometimes considerable wealth, by ex- citing the passions or ministering to the plea- sures of a depraved and licentious metropolis. Thus, on all sides, and in every department of govei'nment, religion, morals, and literature, is the debasing and pernicious influence of th* Revolution manifesting itself; the thin veil which concealed the progress of con'uptica during the Restoration, is torn aside; govern- ment is settling down into despotism, religion into infidelity, morals into licentiousness, lite- rature into depraved extravagance. "What is to be the final issue of these melancholy changes, it is impossible confidently to predict; but of this we may be well assured, that it is not till the fountains of wickedness are closed by the seal of religion, and the stream of thought is purified by suflering, that the disastrous consequences of two successful convulsions can be arrested, or freedom established on a secure basis, or public felicity based on a du- rable foundation. The result of all this is, not only that no real freedom exists in France, but that the ele- ments of constitutional liberty do not exi§t. Every thing depends on the will of the capital : and its determination is so much swayed at present, at least by the public press, and armed force in the capital, that no reliance on the stability of any system of government can be placed. The first Revolution concentrated all the powers of government in the metropolis ; the second vested them in the armed force of its garrison and citizens. Henceforth the strife of faction is likely to be a mere struggle for the possession of the public oflices, and the iiumense patronage with which they are ac- companied : but no measures for the extension of public freedom will, to all appearance, be ar!^7npted. If the republican party were to dethrone Louis Philippe, they would raise the most violent outcry about the triumph of free- dom, and in the midst of it quietly take pos- session of the police-office. »he telegraph, the treasury, and begin to exercise .'he vast powers of government for their own behoof in the most despotic manner. No other system of administration is practicable in France. Ai'ter the state to which it has been reduced by its two Revolutions, a constitutional monarchy, such as existed in Great Britain prior to the revolution of 1832 — that is, a monarchy, in which the powers of sovereignty were ready shared by the crown, the nobles, and the peo pic— could not stand in France for a week- The populace of Paris and their despotic lead ers, or the crown, with its civil and military employers, would swallow up supreme power in a moment. Every government, in the long run, must be founded on one of three bases : either the re presentation "and attachment of all the great IM ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. interests of ihe state ; or the force of a power- ful and devoted soldiery; or the influence of power derived from the possession of all the patronage and appointments in the kingdom. Constitutional monarchies, the glory of Eu- ropean civilization, are founded on the first ; Asiatic despotisms on the last. By the de- struction of all the intermediate classes be- tween the throne and the peasant, the French have rendered the construction of a representa- tive system and a limited throne impossible : they have now to choose only between the fet- ters of a military, or the corruption of an ori- ental, despotism ; between the government of the Praetorian guards, and the servility of the Byzantine empire. They are perpetually de* claiming about the new era which liieir Rerc^ lution has opened in human aflairs, and the interminable career of modern civilization: let them fix their eyes on the court of the Great Mogul and the ryots of Hindostan, and beware lest their changes afford a new confirmatioa of the old adage, That there is nothing new under the sun; and the dreams of republican enthusiasm terminate at last in the strife oi eunuchs and the jealousy of courtesans. ITALIV The scenery of Switzerland is of a dark and gloomy description. In the higher Alps, which lie between the canton of Berne and the plains of Lombardy, the great elevation of the moun- tains, the vicinity of perpetual snow, the tem- pests which frequently occur, and the devasta- tions of the avalanches, have imprinted a stern and often dismal aspect on the scenerj% As the traveller ascends any of those paths, which lead from the canton of Berne over the ridge of the central Alps to the Italian bailiwicks, he gradually approaches the region of eternal desolation. The beech and the oak succes- sivel}' give place to the larch and the fir, and these in their turn disappear, or exhibit onlj' the stunted forms and blasted summits which are produced b}' the rigour and severitj' of the climate. Towards the summit of the pass, even these marks of vegetation disappear, and huge blocks of granite, interspersed with snow, or surrounding black and gloomy lakes, form the only features of the scenery. To the eye which has been habituated for a few da5'^s only to these stern and awful objects, there is no scene so delightful as that which is exhibited by the valleys and the lakes which lie on the southern side of the Alps. The riches of nature, and the delights of a southern climate, are there poured forth with a profusion which is hardly to be met with in any other part of Europe. The valle3-s are narrow and precipitous, bounded on either side by the most stupendous clifls, and winding in such a man- ner as to exhibit, in the most striking point of view, tne unrivalled glories of the scene. But though the vallies are narrower, and the rocks are higher on the southern than the northern side of the Alps, yet the character of the scene is widely different in these two situations. The larch and the fir form the prevailing wood in the higher valleys to the north of the St. Go- thard; but the birch, the chestnut, and the oak, clothe the sunny clifis which look to the Italian sun. Every crevice, and every projecting • Blackwood's Mnpa/.ine, Feb. 1818, and Supplement li»Enryclopj!(lianrilannira,arlirle Italy. — Writtenwhen uavell'ine '» that country in 1S16 and 1818. point on which vegetation can grow, is cover- ed with brushwood ; and, instead of the gray masses of granite which appear on the north- ern side, the cliff's of the southern valleys seem to have caught the warm glow and varied tints of the Italian skj'. Nor is the change less ap- parent in the agricultural productions of the soil. At the foot of the stupendous cliffs, which bound the narrow valleys b)' which the mountains are intersected, the vine, the olive, and the maize, ripen under the ra3's of a ver- tical sun, while the sweet chestnut and the walnut clothe the sloping banks by which the wider parts of the valleys are surrounded. While sinking nnder the heat of a summer sun, Avhich acquires amazing powers in these narrow clefts, the traveller looks back with delight to the snowj^ peaks from which he had so lately descended, whose glaziers are soften- ed by the distance at which they are seen, and seem to partake in the warm glow by which the atmosphere is illuminated. There is another feature by which these valle5's are distinguished, which d.">es not oc- cur in the Swiss territories. Switzerland is a country of peasants: the traces of feudal power have been long obliterated in its free and happy vallies. But on the Italian side of the i Alps, the remnants of baronial power are still to be seen. Magnificent castles of vast dimensions, and placed on the most promixient situations, remind the trave/Ver that he is ap- proaching the region of feudal influence; while the crouching look and abject manner of the peasantr)', tells but too plainly the sway which these feudal proprietors have exercised over their vassals. But whatever may be the in- fluence of aristocratic power upon the habits or condition of the people, the remains of former magnificence which it has left, add amazingly to the beauty and sublimity of the scenery. In the Misocco these antiquated re- mains are peculiarly numerous and imposing. The huge towers and massy walls of thes« Gothic castles, placed on what seem inacces- sible cliffs, and frowning over the villages which have grown up beneath their feet, give ■ ITALY. 156 an air of antiquity and solemnity to the scene, which nothing else is capable of producing; for the wo-rks of nature, long as the}' have i stood, are still covered with the verdure of [ perpetual youth. It is in the v/orks of man I alone that the symptoms of age or of decay appear. The Italian lakes partake, in some measure, : in the general features which have been men- I tioned as belonging to the valleys on the south- ern sid; of the Alps ; but they are charac- terized a. so by some circumstances which are peculiar to themselves. Their banks are al- most eveiywhere formed of steep mountains, which sink at once into the lake without any meadows or level ground on the water side. These mountains are generally of great height, and of the most rugged forms ; but they are clothed to the summit with luxuriant woods, except in those places where the steepness of the precipices precludes the growth of vegeta- tion. The continued appearance of front and precipice which they exhibit, would lead to the behef that the banks of the lake are uninha- bited, were it not for the multitude of villages with which the)'' are everywhere interspersed. These villages are so numerous and extensive, that it may be doubted whether the population anywhere in Europe is denser than on the shores of the Italian lakes. No spectacle in nature can be more beautiful than the aspect of these clusters of human habitations, all built of stone, and white-washed in the neatest manner, with a simple spire rising in the cen- tre of each, to mark the number and devotion of the inhabitants, surrounded by luxuriant forests, and rising one above another to the highest parts of the mountains. Frequently the village is concealed by the intervention of some rising ground, or the height of the adjoining woods ; but the church is always risible, and conveys the liveliest idea of the peace and happiness of the inhabitants. These rural temples are uniformly white, and their spires are of the simplest form ; but it is dif- ficult to convey, to those who have not seen them, an idea of the exquisite addition which they form to the beauty of the scenery. On a nearer approach, the situation of these villages, so profusely scattered over the moun- tains which surround the Italian lakes, is often interesting in the extreme. Placed on the summit of projecting rocks, or sheltered in the defile of secluded valleys, they exhibit every variety of aspect that can be imagined ; but wherever situated, they add to the interest, or enhance the picturesque effect of the scene. The woods by which they are surrounded, and which, from a distance, have the appearance of a continued forest, are in reality formed, for the most part, of the \Talnuts and sweet chestnuts, which grow on the gardens that bebng to the peasantry, and conceal beneath their shade,vineyards, corn-fields, and orchards. Each cottager has his little domain, which is cultivated by his own family; a single chest- nut, and a few mulberry trees, with a small vineyard, constitutes often the whole of their humble property. On this little spot, however, they find wherewithal both to satisfy their Wants and to occupy their industry; the chil- dren take care of the mulberries and the silk worms, which are here produced in grea abundance; the husband dresses the vineyard, or works in the garden, as the season maji require. On an incredibly small piece of ground, a numerous family live, in, what ap- pears to them, ease and afiluence;- and if they can maintain themselves during the year, and pay their rent at its termination, their desires never go beyond the space of their own em- ployment. In this simple and unambitious style of life, it may easily be conceived what the general character of the peasantry must be. Gene- rally speaking, they are a simple, kind-hearted, honest people, grateful to the last degree for the smallest share of kindness, and always willing to share with a stranger the produce of their little domains. The crimes of murder and robbery are almost unknown, at least among the peasantry themselves, although, on the great roads in their vicinity, banditti are sometimes to be found. But if a stranger lives in the country, and reposes confidence in the people, he will find himself as secure, and more respected, than in most other parts of the world. There is one delightful circumstance which occurs in spring in the vicinity of these lakes, to which a northern traveller is but little ac customed. During the months of April and May, the woods are filled with nightingales, and thousands of these little choristers pour forth their strains every night, with a richness and melody of which it is impossible to form a conception. In England we are accustomed frequently to hear the nightingale, and his song has been celebrated in poetry from the earliest periods of our history. But it is generally a single song to which we listen, or at most a few only, which unite to enliven the stillness of the night. But on the banks of the lake of Como, thousands of nightingales are to be fouiul in every wood ; they rest in every tree,— they pour forth their melody on the roof of every cottage. Wherever you walk during the delightful nights of April or May, you hear the unceasing strains of these imseen warblers, swelling on the evening gales, or dying away, as you recede from the woods or thickets where the)' dwell. The soft cadence and me- lodious swelling of this heavenly choir, re- sembles more the enchanting sounds of the Eolian harp than any thing produced by mor- tal organs. To those who have seen the lake of Como, with such accompaniments, duiing the serenity of a summer evening, and with the surrounling headlands and mountains re- flected on i's placid waters, there are few scenes in nature, and few moments in life, which can be the source of such delightful recolieciion. The forms of the mountains which surround the Italian lakes are somewhat similar to those that are to be met with in the Highlands of Scotland, or at the Lake of Kiliarncy; but the great superiority which they possess over any thing in this country, consists in ihc any atid s»u7(n£f aspcrl which nature ihere exhibits. The base only of the Highland hills is ciolheclwith wood; huge" and shapeless swells of heath form the upper parts of the moijniains; and 1C6 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. the snm-.Tiits partake of the gloomy character which the lint of brown or purple throws over the scene. But the mountains which surround the Italian lakes are varied to the summit with life and animation. The woods ascend to the highest peaks, and clothe the most savage cliffs in a robe of verdure; white and sunn}'- villages rise one above another, in endless succession, to the upper parts of the moun- tains ; and innumerable churches, on every projecting point, mark the sway of religion, even in the most remote and inaccessible si- tuations. The English lakes are often cold and cheerless, from the reflection of a dark or lowering sky ; but the Italian lakes are per- fectl)'- blue, and partake of the brilliant colours with which the firmament is filled. In the morning, in particular, when the level sun glitters on the innumerable white villages which surround the Lago Maggiore, the reflec- tion of the cottages, and steeples, and woods, in the blue and glassy surface of the lake, seems to realize the descriptions of the poets in their happiest and most inspired veins. The Lago Maggiore is the most celebrated of these lakes, because it lies most in the way of ordinary travellers ; but, in variety of forms, and in the grandeur of the surrounding objects, it is decidedly inferior to the Lago Lugano, which is, perhaps, upon the whole, the most beautiful lake in Europe. The mountains which surround this lake are not -only very lofty, from 4000 to 5000 feet high, hut broken into a thousand fantastic forms, and split with chasms of the most terrific description. On one of the loftiest of these pinnacles, immedi- ately above the centre of the lake, is placed the castle of St. Salvador ; and the precipice, from its turrets to the surface of the water, is cer- tainly not less than 2000 feet. Nevertheless, this stupendous cliff is clothed, in every cre- vice where the birch can fix its root, with luxuriant woods ; and so completely does this soft covering change the character of the scene, that even this dreadful precipice is rather a beautiful than a terrific object. The great characteristic and principal beauty of the Lago Lugano, arises from its infinite variety, occa- sioned by the numbers of mountains Vi^hich project into its centre, and by presenting an infinite variety of headlands, promontories, and bays, give it rather the appearance of a great number of s:naU lakes connected together, than of one extensive sheet of water. Nor can imagination itself conceive any thing equal to the endless variety of scenery, which is pre- sented by following the deeply indented shores of this lake, or the varied effect of the number- less villages and churches, vv'hich present tHemselves at every turn, to relieve and ani- mate the scene. Foreigners, from every part of Europe, arc accustomed to speak of the Bnromcan Islands with a degree of enthusiasm which raises the expectation to too high a pitch, and of course is apt to produce disappointment. They are laid out in the Italian style of gardening, with KtifT alleys, rnarble fountains, statues, terraces, and other works of art. But this style, how- ever curious or meritorious in itself, and as a Bpeciincn of the skill or dexterity af the gar- dener, is universally allowed to be ill adaptef} to the scenery of real nature, and is more pap ticularly out of place in the Italian lakes, where the vast and broken ridge of the Alps forms the magnificent distance, and gives the prevailing character to the scene. The Isola Madrc is the most pleasing of these celebrated islands, being covered with wood ia the interior, and adorned round the shores with a profusion of the most beautiful flower- ing shrubs. It is diflicult to imagine a more splendid prospect than the view from this island, looking towards the ridge of the Simplon. Numerous white villages, placed at intervals along the shore, enliven the green luxuriant woods which descend to the lake ; and in the farther distance, the broken and serrated ridge of the mountains, clustering round the snowy peaks of Monte Rosa, combines the grandeur of Alpine with the softness of Italian scenery. The buildings, which are so beautifully dis- posed along the shore, partake of the elegance of the scene ; they are distinguished, for the most part, by the taste which seems to be the native growth of the soil of Italy ; and the lake itself resembles a vast mirror, in which the splendid scenery which surrounds it is reflected, with more even than its original beauty. The lake of Como, as is well known, was the favourite residence of Pliny; and a villa on its shore bears the name of the Villa Pli- niana; but whether it is built on the scite of the Roman philosopher's dwelling, has not been ascertained. The immediate vicinity, however, of the intermitting spring, which he has so well described, makes it probable that the ancient villa was at no great distance from the modern one which bears its name. Eustace has dwelt, with his usual eloquence, on the interest Avhich this circumstance gives to this beautiful lake. Towards its upper end, the lake of Como assumes a different aspect from that by which it is distinguished at its lower extrerrity. The hills in the vicinity of Como, and as far to the north as Menagio, are soft in their forms, and being clothed to their suinmiis with vinej'ards and woods, they present rather a beautifu' than a sublime spectacle. But tov/ards the upper end the scene c.ssumes a more savage character. The chestnut woods and orange groves no longer appear; the oak and the fir cover the bold and precipitous banks which hang over the lake ; and the snowy peaks of the Bernhardin and Mount Spluger. rise in gloomy magnificence at the extremity of the scene. On approaching Chiavcnna, the broad expanse of water dwindles into ?. narrow stream ; the banks on either side approach so near, as to give the sceneiy the appearance of a mountain valley; and the Alps, which close it in, are clothed with forests of fir, or present vast and savage precipices of rock. From this point there is an easy passage over the Bernhardin to the Rheinthal, and the interest- ing country of the Grisons; and the Val de Misox, through which the road leads, is one of the most beautiful on the southern side of the Alps, and particularly remarkable for the magnificent castles with which its projecting points are adorned. ITALY. 167 The tour which is usually followed in the Italian lakes, is to visit first the Lago Maggiore, and then drive to Como, and ascend to the Villa Pllniana, or to Menngio, and return to Como or Lecco. By following this course, however, the Lago Luganc is wholly omitted, which is perhaps the most picturesque of all the three. The better plan is to ascend from Baveno, on the Lago Maggiore, to the upper end of that lake ; and after exploring its varied beauties, land at Luvino, and cross from thence to Pontc Tresa, and there embark for Lugano, from whence you reach Porlezza by Avater, through the most magnificent part of the Lago Lugano; from thence cross to Mcnagio, on the lake of Como, whence, as from a central point, the traveller may ascend to Chiavenna, or descend to Lecco or Como, as his time or incUnation may prescribe. It is one most interesting characteristic of tlie people who dwell on these beautiful lakes, that they seem to be impressed with a genuine and unaffected piety. The vast number of churches placed in every village, and crown- ing every eminence, is a proof of how much has been done for the service of religion. But it is a more interesting spectacle, to behold the devotion with which the ordinances of rehgion are observed in all these places of worship. Numerous as the churches are, they seem to be hardly able to contain the numbers who frequent them ; and it is no unusual spectacle to behold crowds of both sexes kneeling on the turf in the church-yard on Sunday forenoon, who could not find room in I the church itself. There is something singu- ji larly pleasing in such manifestation of simple I devotion. Whatever may be the diversity in j' points of faith, which separate Christians from each other, the appearance of sincere piety, j more especially in the poorer classes, is an object of interest, and fitted to produce respect. We are too apt to imagine, in England, that real devotion is little felt in Catholic states ; but whoever has travelled in the Alps, or dwelt on the Italian Lakes, must be convinced that this belief is without foundation. The poor people who attend these churches, are in general neatly, and even elegantly; dressed; and the Scripture pieces which are placed above the altar, rude as they may be, are dis- tinguished by a beauty of expression, and a grace of design, which proves in the most striking way how universally a taste for the fine aits is diff'used throughout the peasantry of Italy. While gliding along the placid sur- face of these lakes, the traveller beholds with delight the crowds of well-dressed people who descend from the churches that are placed along their shores ; and it is sometimes a most interesting incident, amidst the assemblage of forests and precipices which the scenery pre- sents, to see the white dresses of the peasantry winding down the almost perpendicular face of the mountains, or emerging from the luxu- riant forests with which their sides arc clothed. The climate in these lakes is delightful. The vicinity of the mountain indeed attracts fre- quent rains, which has rendered Como pro- verbial in Lombardy for the wetness of its climate ; but when the shower is over, the sky reassumes its delicious blue, and the sun shines with renovated splendour on the green woods and orange groves which adorn the mountain sides. Perhaps the remarkable and beautiful greenness of the foliage, which cha racterizes the scenery of all these lakes,, it; owing to the frequent showers which the height of tho surrounding mountains occa sions ; and if so, we owe to them one of the most singular and characteristic beauties by which they are distinguished. Italy comprises four great divisions: in each of which the face of nature, the mode of cultivation, and the condition of the people, is very difl"erent from what it is in the others. The first of these emibraces the vast plain which lies between the Alps and the Apen- nines, and extends from Coni on the west to the Adriatic on the east. It is bounded on the south by the Apennines, which, branching off from the Maritime Alps, run in a south-easterly direction to the neighbourhood of Lorretto, and on the north by the chain of the Alps, which presents a continued face of precipices from sea to sea. This rich and beautiful plain is, with the exception of a few inconsiderable hills, a perfect level; insomuch that for two hundred miles there is not a single ascent to be met with. Towards its western end, in the plain of Piedmont, the soil is light and sandy; but it becomes richer as you proceed to the eastward, and from Lodi to Ferrara is com- posed of the finest black mould. It is watered by numberless streams, which descend from the adjacent mountains, and roll their tributary waters to the Po, and this supply of water joined to the unrivalled fertility of the soil, renders this district the richest, in point of agricultural produce, that exists in Etu-ope. An admirable system of cultivation has long been established in this fertile plain ; and three successive crops annually reward the labours of the husbandman. The second extends over all the declivities of the Apeiuiines, from the frontiers of France to the southern extremity of Calabria. This immense region comprises above half of the whole superficial extent of Italy, and main- tains a very great proportion of its inhabitants. It everywhere consists of swelling hills, rapid descents, and narrov/ valleys, and yields spon- taneously the choicest fruits. The olive, the vin?, the fig tree, the pomegranate, the sweet chestnut, and all the fruits of northern climates, flourish in the utmost luxuriance on the sunny slopes of Tuscany and the Roman States; while in Naples and Calabria, in addition to these, are to be found the orange tree, the citron, the palm, and the fruits of tropical regions. The higher parts of these mountains are covered by magnific.ent forests of sweet chestnuts, which yield subsistence to a numerous popu- lation, at the height of many thousand fee' above the fea; while, at the summit, fasturp^ are to be Ijund, similar to those of the Che- viot Hills in Scotland. The third region comprises the plains which lie between the Apennines and iho .Mediterra- nean, and extends from, the neighbourhood of Pisa to the mountains of Terracino. This dis trict, once covered by a numerous poDulation. 168 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. and cultivated in the most careful manner, is now almost a desert. It is the region of insa- ubrious air; and no means have 3-ct been devised by which it is possible to enable the human race to flourish under its pestilential influence. After leaving the highest state of civilization in Florence or Rome, the traveller is astonished to find himself in the midst of vast plains, over which numerous flocks of cattle wander at large under the care of shep- herds mounted on horseback, and armed after the fashion of the steppes of Tartar}'. This division includes under it all the plains which lie between the Apennines and the Mediterra- nean, in the Neapolitan territory, among M'hich the Maremma of Pestuni is most conspicuous ; and nothing but the vast population of Naples prevents its celebrated Campagna from relaps- ing into the same desolate state. The fourth great division comprehends the plains which lie to the eastward of the Apen- nines, in the kingdom of Naples, and is bound- ed b}^ the Adriatic sea on the one side, and the irregular line of the mountains on the other. It is in some places from fifty to one hundred miles broad, and in others the mountains approach the sea-shore. The country is flat, or rises into extensive downs, and is cultivated in large farms, where it is under agricultural manage- ment; but a great proportion is devoted entirely to pasturage. Immense forests of olive are to be met with in this remote district, and the hills are covered with vines, and oranges, and other fruits, with corn growing under them. The only range of mountains which pro- perly and exclusively belongs to Italy is the Apennines ; and they extend over more than half of the country. Their height is very va- rious ; in the vicinity of Genoa they rise to about 4500 feet; above Pontrimoli, on the borders of Tuscany and Lombardy, they reach 5500 to 6000 feet, and the great ridge which stretches from Bologna by Valombrosa, to the south-east, rises in some places to between JOOO and 7000. They are not, in general, very rock}-; at least it is only in their higher emi- nences that this character appears. Their lower parts, everywhere almost, are covered with fruit trees, under the shade of which, in the southern exposures, crops of grain are brought to maturity. Higher up, the sweet chestnut covers the ascent, and supports an immense population at an elevation above the sea where no food for man covild be procured in our climate. The pine, the beech, and the fir, occupy those higher regions in which are Valombrosa, Lavernia, and Camaldoli ; and at the summits of all, the open dry pastures fur- nish subsistence to numerous flocks. This great capability of the Apennines to yield food for the use of man, is the cause of the extraor- dinary populousnes.s oi its slopes. In the remotest recesses the traveller discovers vil- lages and towns ; and on the face of mountains where the eye at a distance can discern nothing but wood, he finds, on a nearer approach, every spot of ground carefully cultivated. The vil- ;ages and towns are commonly situated on the summits of eminences, and frequently sur- rounded by walls and towers ; a practice which began in the turbulent periods of the Italian re- publics, and has been since continued froi the dread of malaria in the bottom of the va leys. It adds greatly to the picturesque eff© of the mountain scenerj', and gives it a ch^ racter altogether peculiar. In the Tuscan states, the lower ranges of the Apennines have been the object of the utmost care, and of an almost inconceivable expenditure of capital. They are regularly cut in terraces, and when- ever an opportunity occurs, water is brought from the adjoining canals to every field, so that the whole valley is as it were covered with a network of small streams, which convey their freshness all around. The olives and figs which flourish in this delightful region are foreign to the Tuscan soil; there is not a tree there which is the spontaneous production of nature; they are all planted and pruned by the 1 hand of man. ! Nothing can be imagined more sterile in itself, or more adverse to any agricultural im- provement, than the aspect of nature in the Apennines. Their sides present a series of broken rocks, barren slopes, or arid cliffs. The roots of the bushes, laid bare by the au- tumnal rains, are, by degrees, dried up by the heat of the sun. They perish, and leave nothing behind them but a few odoriferous shrubs dis- i persed on the rocks to cover the wreck. The narrow ravines between them present, in summer, only the dry beds of torrents, in which fallen trees, rocks, and gravel, are accumulated by the violence of the winter rains. This debris is brought down by the ; torrents into the wider valleys, and whole tracts of country are desolated by a sterile mass ol stone and gravel. Thus the mountains and the valleys at their feet seem equally incapa- ble of culture; but the industry of the Italians has overcome these obstacles, and converted mountains, to appearance the most sterile that i imagination could conceive, into a succession of gardens, in which every thing that is most delightful, as well as useful, is assembled. This astonishing metamorphosis has been effected by the introduction of the terrace sys- tem of culture, an improvement which seems to have been unknown to the ancient Romans, ' and to have spread in Europe with the return of the Crusaders in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. (Chateauvieux, 300.) Nothingcould oppose the destructive force of the torrents, but altering the surface of the hills, and thereby breaking the course of the waters. This was ' an immense work, for it required the whole soil to be displaced, and built up by means of artificial walls into successive terraces; and this in many places could be effected only by breaking solid ro(?ks, and bringing a new soil ' from distant places. The artificial land, so dearly purchased, is designed for the cultivation of fruits and vege- tables. The terraces are always covered with fruit-trees placed in a reflected sun. Amidst the reverberations of so many Avails, the fruit is most abundant and superior in its kind No room is lost in these limited situations. — the vine extends its branches along the walls; a hedge formed of the same vine branches surrounds each terrace, and cover?: U with verdure. In the corners formed by the meeting ITALY. W) af the supporting walls, fig-trccs are planted 10 vegetate under their protection. The owner lakes advantage of every vacant space left be- tween the olive-trees to raise melons and vege- tables ; so that he obtains on a very limited ex- tent, olive, grapes, pomegranates, and melons. So great is the produce of this culture that, under good management, half the crop of seven acres is sufficient for a family of five persons : being little more than the produce of three- fourths of an acre to each soul. This little space is often divided into more than twenty terraces. A great part of the moiuitainous part of Italy has adopted this admirable culture: and tliis accounts for the great population which everywhere inhabit the Italian mountains, and explains the singular fact, that, in scenes where nothing but continued foliage meets the e)'e, the traveller finds, on a nearer approach, villages and hamlets, and all the signs of a numerous peasantry. Continued vigilance is requisite to maintain these works. If the attention of the husband- man is intermitted for any considerable time, the violence of the rains destroys what it had cost so much labour to create. Storms and torrents wash down the soil, and the terraces are broken through or overwhelmed by the rubbish, which is brought down from the higher parts of the mountain. Every thing returns rapidly to its former state ; the vigour of southern vegetation covers the ruins of human industry: and there soon remains only shapeless vestiges covered by briers. The system of irrigation in the valley of the Vrno is a most extraordinary monument of auman industrj'. Placed between two ridges of mountains, one of them very elevated, it was periodically devastated by numerous torrents, which were precipitated from the mountains, charged Avilh stone and rubbish. To control these destructive inundations, means were contrived to confine the course of the torrents within strong walls, which serve at the same time for the formation of a great number of canals. At regular distances, openings are formed below the mean level of the stream, that the water may run out laterally, overflow the land, and remain on it long enough to deposit the mud with which it is charged. A great many canals, by successive outlets of the water, divide the principal current and check its rapiditj-. These canals are infinitely sub- divided, and to such a degree, that there is not a single square of land, which is not sur- rounded by them. They are all lined with walls, built with square bricks; the scarcity of water rendering the most vigilant economy of it necessary. A number ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. SCHOOLS or DESIGN. J * We stand in this community in a very peculiar situation, and which loudly calls for immediate attention of all interested in their country's greatness. We have reached the very highest point of commercial greatness. Such has been the growth of our mechanical power, such the marvels of our commercial enter- prise ! But, when we tarn to the station we oc- cupy in the arts of design, in these very arts in which, as a manufacturing community, we are so deeply interested, we see a very different spectacle. We see foreignei's daily flocking from all parts of the world to the shores of the Clyde or the Mersey, to study our railways, and our canals; to copy our machinery, to take models of our steam-vessels — but we see none coming to imitate our designs. On the contrary, we, who take the lead of all the world in mechanical invention, in the powers of art, are obliged to follow them in the designs to which these powers are to be applied. Gentle- men, this should not be. We have now arrived at that period of manufacturing progress, when we must take the lead in design, or we shall cease to have orders for performance — we must be the first in conception, or we will be the last in execution. To others, the Fine Arts may be a matter of gratification or ornament; to a manufacturing community it is one of life or death. We may, however, be encou- raged to hope that we may yet and ere long attain to eminence in the Fine Arts, from ob- serving how uniformly in past times com- mercial greatness has co-existed with purity of taste and the development of genius ; in so much that it is hard to say whether art has owed most to the wealth of commerce, or com- merce to the perfection of. art. Was it not the wealth of inland commerce which, even in the deserts of Asia, reared up that great com- monwealth, which once, under the guidance of Zenobia, bade defiance to the armies of imperial Rome, and the ruins of which, at Tadmor and Palmyra, still attract the admira- tion of the traveller? Was it not the wealth of maritime commerce which, on the shores t)f the ^gean sea, raised that great republic which achieved a dominion over the minds of men more durable than that which had been reared by the legions of Cccsar, or the phalanx of Alexander 7 Was it not the manufactures of Tuscany vvhich gave birth at Florence to that immorial school of painting, the works of which still attract the civilized world to the shores of the Arno? The velvets of Genoa, the jewelry of Venice, long maintained their as- cendency after tho political importance of these republics had declined; and the school of design established sixty years ago at Lyons has enabled its silk manufactures to preserve Che lead in Europe — despite the carnage of the Convention, and the wars of Napoleon. In • Spcorli delivered on Nov. 2S. 1SI3, in proposing the CKStublisliiiient of a Scliool of Design in Glasgow. Flanders and Holland the wealth and en;er« prise of commerce, notwithstanding the dis- advantages of a level soil, a cloudy atmosphere, and a humid climate, have produced the im- mortal works of Rubens, Vandyke, and Rem- brandt. Why should a similar result not take place here 1 Arrived at the summit of manu- facturing greatness, why should we be second to any in the arts of design 1 Have they pos- sessed advantages which we do not enjoy 1 Had they finer cataracts than the Falls of the Clyde, or glens more romantic than Cartland Crags — had they nobler oaks than those of Cadzow, or ruins more imposing than those of Bothwell — had they galleries finer than the halls of Hamilton, or lakes more lovely than Loch Lomond, or mountains more sublime than those ofArranl Gentlemen, within two hours' journey from Glasgow are to be found combined "Whate'er Lorrain hath touched with softeninj hue Or savage Rosa dashed, or learned Poussin drew." The wealth is here, the enterprise is here, the materials are here; nothing is wanting but the hand of genius to cast these precious elements into the mould of beauty — the lofty spirit, the high aspirations which, aiming at greatness, never fail to attain it. Are we to be told that we cannot do these things; that like the Russians we can imitate but cannot conceive 1 It is not in the nation of Smith and of Watt, — it is not in the land of Bums and Scott, — it is not in the country of Shak- speare and Milton, — it is not in the empire of Reynolds and Wren, that we can give any weight to that argument. Nor is it easy to believe that the same genius which has drawn in such enchanting colours the lights and shadows of Scottish life, might not, if otherwise directed, have depicted, with equal felicity, the lights and shadows of Scottish scenery. We have spoken of our interests M^e have spoken of our capabilities, — we have spoken of what other nations have done; — but there are greater things done than these. No one indeed can doubt that it is in the moral and religious feelings of the people, that the broad and deep foundations of national prosperity can alone be laid, and that every attempt to attain durable greatness on any other basis will prove nugatory. But Ave are not only moral and intellectual, we are active agents. We long after gratification — we thirst for en- joyment ; and the experienced obsen-er of inan will not despise the subsidiary, but still important aid to be derived in the great work of moral elevation, from a due direction of the active propensities. And he is not the least friend to his species, who, in an age peculiar- ly vehement in desire, discovers gratifications ivhich do not corrupt — enjoyments which do not degrade. But if this is true of enjoyments simply innocent, what shall we say of those which refine, which not only do not lead to LAMARTLXE. 163 Tire, but exalt to virtue? — whirh open to the pe.isaiii, equally villi the prince, that pure graiilication which arises to ail nlilce from the contemplation of the f^rand and the beautiful in Art and in Nature ? We have now reached ibai point where such an election can no longer be delaj-ed. Our wealth is so fjreat, n has come on us so sudilenly, it will cornipt if it does not refine ; if not directed to the arts which raised Athens to immortality, it wUL sink us to those which hurled Babylon to per- dition. lamaktine; It is remarkable, that although England is the country in the world which has sent forth the greatest number of ardent and intrepid travellers to explore the distant parts of the earth, yet it can by no means furnish an array of writers of travels which will bear a compa- rison with those whom France can boast. In skilful navigation, daring adventure, and heroic Eerseverance, indeed, the country of Cook and lavis, of Bruce and Park, of Vlackenzie and Buckingham, of Burckhardt and Byron, of Par- ry and Franklin, may well claim the pre-emi- nence of all others in the world. An English- man first circumnavigated the globe ; an Englishman alone has seen the fountains of the Nile ; and, five years after the ardent spi- rit of Columbus had led his fearful crews across the Atlantic, Sebastian Cabot dis- covered the shores of Newfoundland, and planted the British standard in the regions destined to be peopled with the overflowing multitudes of the Anglo-Saxon race. But if we come to the literary works which have followed these ardent and energetic ef- forts, and which are destined to perpetuate their memory- to future times — the interesting discoveries which have so much extended our knowledge and enlarged our resources — the contemplation is by no means, to an inhabitant of these islands, equally satisfactory. The British traveller is essentially a man of en- ergy and action, but rarely of contemplation or cloijuonce. He is seldom possessed of the scientific acquirements requisite to turn to the best accotint the vast stores of new and original information which arc placed within his reach. He offn obsf-rves and collects facts; but it is as a prnriical man, or for professional pur- poses, rather than as a philosopher. The ge- nius of the AngUvSaxon race — boM, sagacious, and « nierprising, rather than conti-mplative and scientific — nowhere appears m than in the accotints of the niiniei trcpi'l travellers whom they are ciuiiinually seniling forth into every part of the earth. We admire their vigour, we aremoved by iheirhard- ships, w: are enriched by their (Jiscoveries ; but if we turn to our lil'rnrie<; fur works to con- vey to future aires an • and interesting acciMint of these fa ■ ., ndvenltires, we fhall, in general, experience nothing but dis- appointment. Few of them arc written with the practised hand, the graphic eye. necessary •o convey vivid pictures to future times; • Olarkwood'a Mnsiizint** Nov. 1M4. and though numerous and valuable books of travels, as works of reference, load the shelves ' of our libraries, there are surprisingly few which are fitted, from the interest and vivacitj of the style in which they are written, to pos sess permanent attractions for mankind. One great cause of this remarkable peculi- arity is without doubt to be found in the widely different education of the students in our uni- versities, and our practical men. In the for- mer, classical attainments are in literature the chief, if not exclusive, objects of ambition ; and in consequence, the young aspirants for fame, who issue from these learned retreats, have their minds filled with the charms and associations of antiquity, to the almost entire exclusion of objects of present interest and im- portance. The vigorous practical men. again, who are propelled by the enterprise and exer- tions of our commercial towns, are sagacious and valuable observers ; but they have seldom the cultivated minds, pictorial eye, or powers of description, requisite to convey vivid or in- teresting impressions to others. Thus our scholars give us little more than treatises on inscriptions, and disquisitions on the sites of ancient towns; while the accounts of our ac- tive men are chiefly occupied with commercial inquiries, or subjects connected with trade and navieation. The cultivated and enlightened tra- veller, whose mind is alike open to the charm of ancient story and the interest of nioilern achievement — who is classical without being pedantic, graphic and yet faithful, enthusiastic and yet accurate, discursive and at the same time imaginative, is almost unknown amoncrst us. It will continue to be so as long as edu- cation in our universities is exclusively devot- ed to CJreek and Latin verses, or the higher ma- thematics; and in academies, to book-keeping and the rule of three; while so broad and sul len a line as heretofore is drawn between the studies of our scholars and the pursuits of our practical citizens. To travel to good purpose requires n mind stored with much and varied information, in science, statistics, geocraphy, literature, history, and poetry. To descnbi" what the traveller has seen, requires, in .ml'li lion to thi-i, the eye of a painter, the soul of a poet, and the hand ofa practised composer. Pro- bably it will be deemed no ea.sy matter to find such a combination in any countrv or in any age ; and most certainly the svsteni of eihir.-\iion, neither at our learned un 'iir com- mercial acadi-mies, is ll • e n. It is from inattention to the va.st <:«yre t4 164 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. previous information reqiiisite to make an ac- complished traveller, and still more a writer of interesting travels, that failures in this branch of literature are so glaring and so fre- quent. In other departments of knowledge, a certain degree of information is felt to be requisite before a man can presume to Avrite a book. He cannot produce a treatise on ma- thematics without knowing at- least Euclid, nor a worlc on history without having read Hume, nor on political economy without having acquired a smattering of Adam Smith. But in regard to travels, no previous informa- tion is thought to be requisite. If the person who sets out on a tour has only money in his pocket, and health to get to his journey's end, he is deemed sufficiently qualified to come out with his two or three post octavos. If he is an Honourable, or known at Almack's, so much the better ; that will ensure the sale of the first edition. If he can do nothing else, he can at least tell the dishes which he got to dinner at the inns, and the hotels where comfortable beds are to be found. This valuable informa- tion, interspersed with a few descriptions of scenes, copied from guide-books, and anecdotes picked up at tabks-d'lwlc or on board steam- boats, constitute the stock in trade of many an adventurer who embarks in the speculation of pa3dng by publication the expenses of his travels. We have no individuals in view in these remarks; we speak of things in general, as they are, or rather have been ; for we be- lieve these ephemeral travels, like other ephe- merals, have had their day, and are fast dying out. The market has become so glutted with them that they are, in a great many instances, unsaleable. The classical /avellers of England, from Addison to Eustace and Clarke, constitute an important and valuable body of writers in this branch of literature, infinitely superior to the fashionable tours which rise up and disappear like bubbles on the surface of society. It is impossible to read these elegant productions without feeling the mind overspread with the charm which arises from the exquisite remains and heart-stirring associations with which they are filled. But their interest is almost exclu- sively classical ; they are invaluable to the ac- complished scholar, but they speak in an un- known tongue to the great mass of men. They see nature only through the medium of anti- quity; beautiful in their allusion to Greek or Roman remains, eloquent in the descriptions of scenes alluded to in the classical writers, they have dwelt little on the simple scenes of the unhistoric world. To the great moral and social questions which now agitate society, and so strongly move the hearts of the great body of men, they are entire strangers. Their works are the elegant companions ofthe scholar or the antiquary, not the heart-stirring friends of the cottage on the fireside. Inferior to Britain in the energy and achieve- ments of the travellrrs whom she has sent forth, and beyond measure beneath her in the amount of the addition she has made to geo- Rraphical science, France is yet greatly supe- rior, at least of late years, in the literary and scientific attainments of the wanderers whose works have been given to the world. Four among these stand pre-eminent, whose works, irt very different styles, are at the head of Eu- ropcon literature in this interesting department — Humboldt, Chateaubriand, Michaud, and La- martine. 1'heir st3'les are so various, and the impressions produced by reading them so dis- tinct, that it is diflicult to believe that they have arisen in the same nation and age ofthe world- Humboldt is, in many respects, and perhaps upon the whole, at the head of the list; and to his profound and varied works we hope to be able to devote a future paper. He unites, ia a degree that perhaps has never before been witnessed, the most various qualities, and which, from the opposite characters of mind which they require, are rarely found in uniton. A profound philosopher, an accurate observer of nature, an unwearied statist, he is at the same time an eloquent writer, an incompara- ble descriher, and an ardent friend of social improvement. Science owes to his indefati- gable industry many of her most valuable ac- quisitions : geography, to his intrepid perse- verance, many of its most important discove- ries ; the arts, to his poetic eye and fervid elo- quence, many of their brightest pictures. He unites the austere grandeur of the exact sciences to the bewitching charm of the fine arts. It is this very combination which pre- vents his Avorks from being generally popular. The riches of his knoAvledge, the magnitude of his contributions to scientific discover}', the fervour of his descriptions of nature, al- ternately awaken our admiration and excitf our surprise ; but they oppress the mind. To be rightly apprehended, they require a readei in some degree familiar Avitli all these subjects , and how many of these are to be met Avith ? The man Avho takes an interest in his scienti- fic observations will seldom be transported by his pictures of scenery; the social observer, Avho extracts the rich collection of facts Avhich he has accumulated regarding the people Avhom he visited, will be indifl"erent to his geographi- cal discoA'eries. There are few Humboldts either in the reading or thinking Avorld. Chateaubriand is a traA'eller of a Avholly different character. He lived entirely in anti- quity; but it is not the antiquity of Greece and Home Avhich has alone fixed his regards, as it has done those of Clarke and Eustace — it is the recollections of chiA'alry, the dcA'out spirit of the pilgrim, AA'hich chiefly Avarmed his ar- dent imagination. He is uniA'ersally alloAved by Frenchmen of .all parties to be their first Avriter; and it maybe conceived what brilliant Avorks an author of such poA\-ers, and emi- nently gifted both with the soul of a poet and the eye of a painter, must haA^e produced in describing the historic scenes to Avhich his pilgrimages extended. He Avcnt to Greece and the Uo\y Land with a mind devout rather than enlightened, credulous rather than inquisitive. Thirsting for strong emotions, he would be satisfied; teeming Avith the recollections and visions of the past, he traversed the plnccT halloAvcd by his early affections Avith the fond- ness of a lover who returns to the home of his bliss, of a mature ma^i aa-Iio rcA'isits the scenes of his infancy. He cared not to inquire LA.MARTINE. 165 whnt was tnie or what was Icgcndan' in ihosc timi^-hallowcd traditions; ho gladly acct'iilcd thi'in as ihey stood, and studiously averted all inquiry into the foundation on which they rested. He wandered over the Peloponn^us or Jndra with the fond ardour of an English Sfhiilar who seeks in the Palatine Mount the traces of Virgil's enchanting description of the hut of Evander, and rejects as sacrilege every attempt to shake his faith. " WliPn i'oipnre from Crfal ion's face Eiirhanliiienl's visions draws. W'lial lovely visions yield Iheir i)lace To cold nintorial laws ; " Even in the woods of America, the same rul- ing passion was evinced. In those pathless solitudes, where no human foot had ever trod luit that of the wandering savage, and the majesty of nature appeared in undisturbed repose, his thoughts were still of the Old World. It was on the historic lands that his heart was set. A man himself, he dwelt on the scenes which had been signalized by the deeds, the sufferings, the glories of man. Michaud's mind is akin to that of Chateau- briand, and yet different in many important particulars. The learned and indefatigable historian of the Crusades, he has traversed the shores of the Mediterranean — the scene, as Dr. Johnson observed, of all that can ever interest man — liis religion, his knowledge, his arts — with the ardent desire to imprint on his mind the scenes and images which met the eyes of the holy warriors. He seeks to trans- port us to the days of Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse; he thirsts with the Christian host at Dorislaus, he shares in its anxieties at the siege of Antioch, he partici- pates in its exultation at the storming of Jeru- salem. The scenes visited by the vast multi- tude of warriors who, during two hundred years, were precipitated from Europe on Asia, have almost all been visited by him, and de- scribed with the accuracy of an antiriuary and the enthusiasm of a poet. With the old chro- nicles in his hand, he treads with veneration the scenes of former generous sacrifice and heroic achievements, and the vast and massy structures erected on cither sidg iluring those terrible wars — when, for centuries, Europe strove hand to hand with Asia — most of which have undergone very little alteration, enable him to descrilie them almost exactly as they appeared to the holy warriors. The interest of his pilgrimage in the cast, accordingly, is peculiar, but ver}' great; it is not so much a book of travels as a moving chronicle; but, like JSir W. Scott's Miiislrrlty of thr Jinrrlrrii, it is achroniclc cbuhed in a very difTerr-nt garb from the homely dress of the oblcn time. It trans- ports us back, not only in time but in idea, six nnndred years; but it docs so with the grace of modern times — it clothes the profound feel- ings, the generous sacrifices, the forgeifulness of self of the twrlfth century, with the poetic mind, the cultivated taste, the refined imagery of the nineteenth. Lamartine has traversed the same scenes with Chateaubriand and Michaud, and yet he has done so in a dilTerent spirit; and the character of his work is essentially different from either. He has not the dc7out credulity of the lirsi, nor ihc antiquarian zeal and know- ledge of the la^t; but he is superior to either in the description of nature, and the painting vivid and interesting scenes on the mind of the reader. His work is a moving panorama, in which the historic scenes and azure skies, and placid seas, and glowing sunsets, of the cast, arc portrayed in all their native bril- lianc)^ and in richer even than their native colours. His mind is stored with the associa- tions and the ideas of antiquity, and he has thrown over his descriptions of the scenes of Greece, or Holy Writ, all the charms of such recollections ; but he has done so in a more general and catholic spirit than either of his predecessors. He embarked for the Holy Land shortly before the revolution of 1830; and his thoughts, amidst all the associations of antiquity, constantly reverted to the land of his fathers — its distractions, its woes, its ceaseless turmoil, its gloomy social prospects. Th''^ with all his vivid imagination and unri- valled powers of description, the turn of his mind is essentially contemplative. He looks on the past as an emblem of the present; he sees, in the fall of Tyre, and Athens, and Jeru- salem, the fate which one day awaits his own country; and mourns less the decay of human things, than the popular passions and national sins which have brought that instability in close proximity to his own times. This sen- sitive and foreboding disposition was much increased by the death of his daughter — a charming child of fourteen, the companion of his wanderings, the depositary of liis thoughts, the darling of his affections — who was snatched away in the spring of life, when in health and joy, by one of the malignant fevers incidental to the pestilential plains of the east. Though Lamartine's travels are continuous, he does not, like most other wanderers, fur- nish us with a journal of ever}- day's proceed- ings. He was too well aware that many, perhaps most, days on a journey are monoto- nous or uninteresting; and that great part of the details of a traveller's progress are wh(dly unworthy of being recorded, because they are neither amusing, elevating, nor in- structive. He paints, now and then, with all the force of his magical pencil, the more bril- liant or characteristic scenes which he visited, and intersperses them with reneclions, moral and social ; such as woultl naturally be aroused in a sensitive mind by the sight of the ruins of ancient, and the contemplation of the decay of modern, times. He embarked at Marseilles, with Madame T.amartine and his liille daughter Julia, on the lOlh of July, IR.'K). The following is the pic- ture of the yearnings of his mind on leaving his native land; and they convey a faithful image scure range of serrated mountains ; on the ; right opened a narrow and deep valley, where a fountain gushed forth beneath the shade of aged trees; behind, rose a hill, clothed to the top with olives, which in the night appeared dark, from its summit to its base — a line ol Gothic towers and white houses broke the ob- ■ scurity of the wood, and drew the thoughts to i the abodes, the joys, and the sufferings of man. Further ofl^, in the extremity of the gulf, three enormous rocks rose, like pillars Avithout base, from the surface of the waters — their forms : were fantastic, their surface polished like flints j by the action of the waves; but those flints \ were mountains — the remains, doubtless, of ! that primeval ocean which once overspread \ the earth, and of which our seas are but a ' feeble image."— (L 66.) A rocky bay on the same romantic coast, ; now rendered accessible to travellers by the i magnificent road of the Corniche, projected, ; and in part executed by Napoleon, furnishes another subject for this exquisite pencil: — " A mile to the eastward on the coast, the mountains, which there dip into the sea, are broken as if by the strokes of enormous clubs — huge fragments have fallen, and are strewed ; in wild confusion at the foot of the clifls, or amidst the blue and green waves of the sea, which incessantly laves them. The waves break on these huge masses without inter mission, AvitlT a hollow and alternating roar, or rise up in sheets of foam, Avhich besprinkle their hoary fronts. These masses of moun- tains — for they are too large to be called rocks — are piled and heaped together in such num- bers, that they form an innumerable number of narrow havens, of profound caverns, of sounding grottoes, of gloomy fissures — of which the children of some of the neighbouring fishermen alone know the windings and the issues. One of these caverns, into Avhich you enter by a natural arch, the summit of which is formed by an enormous block of granite, lets in the sea, through which it flows into a dark and narrow valley, which the waters fill entirely, with a surface as limpid and .smooth as the firmament which they reflect. The sea preserves in tliis sequestered nook thatbcautiful tint of bright green, of which marine painters so strongly feel the value, but which they can never transfer exactly to their canvas; for the eye sees much which the hand strives in vain to imitate. LAMAIITINE. 167 "On ihe two sides oflhatmariiievcillcyri.se two pri'iliRious walls of perpeiuliciilar rock, of an unifunn and sombre hue, similar to that of iron ore, after it has issued and cooled from the furnace. Not a plant, not a moss can find a slope or a crevice wherein to insert its roots or cover the rocks with those waving garlands which so often in Savoy clothe the clilfs, where Uiey llower to God alone. Black, naked, per- pendicular, repelling the eye by their awful aspect — they seem t\) have been placed there for no other purpose but to protect from the sea-breezes the hills of olives and vines, which bloom under their shelter; an image of those ruling men in a stormy epoch, who seem placed by Providence to bear the fury of all the tem- pests of passion and of lime, to screen the weaker but happier race of mortals. At the bottom of the bay the sea expands a little, as- sumes a bluer tint as it comes to reflect more of the cloudless heavens, and at length its tiny waves die away on a bed of violets, as closely netted together as the sand upon the shore. If you disembark from the boat, you find in the cleft of a neighbouring ravine a fountain of living water, which gushes beneath a narrow path formed by the goats, which leads up from this sequestered solitude, amidst overshadow- ing fig-trees and oleanders, to the cultivated abodes of man. Few scenes struck me so much in my long wanderings. Its charm con- sists in that exquisite union of force and grace which forms the perfection of natural beauty as of the highest class of intellectual beings; it is that mysterious hymen of the land and the sea, surprised, as it were, in their most secret and hidden imion. It is the image of perfect calm and inaccessible solitude, close to the theatre of tumultuous tempests, where their near roar is heard with such terror, where iheir foaming but lessened waves yet break upon the shore. It is one of those numer- ous rhrjs-cVauvrc of creation which God has scattered over the earth, as if to sport with contrasts, but which he conceals so frequently on the summit of naked rocks, in the deplh of inaccessible ravines, on the unappmachable shores of the ocean, lilcc jewels which he unveils rarely, and that only to simple be- ings, to children, to shepherds or fishermen, or the devout worshippers of nature." — (I. 73 -74.) This style of description of scenery is peculiar to this age, and in it liamarline may safely be pronounced without a rival in the whole range of literature. It wa.s with Scott and Chateaubriand that the f^mphir style of df-rripiion arose in England and Franco; but he has pushed the art furlhi-r than cither of his irre.-it piivlecssors. Milton and 'rhf)nis()n had l.n/.' I, mdeed, in poetry, painted nature in the mo'-t enchaniing, as well as the truest colours; but in prose litllc was to be found except a ^tij<(ts, as lakes, mountains, and rivers, without any specification of features and details, so as to convey a definite and dis- tinct impression to the mind of the reader. Even the rl i iml mind and rrfin^fl taste of Addison cuild not attain this graphic style ; his iescnptions of scenerj', like that of all prose writers down to the close of the eighteenth century, are lost in vague generalities. Llk? almost all descriptions of battles in mod'-rn times, before Napier, they are so like each other that you cannot distinguish one from the other. Scott and Chateaubriand, when they did apply their great powers to the delineation of nature, were incomparably faithful, as well as powerfully imaginative; but such descrip- tions were, for the most part, but a secondary object with them. The human heart was their great study; the vicissitudes of life, the inex- haustible theme of their genius. With La- martine, again, the description of nature is the primary object. It is to convey a vivid im- pression of the scenes he has visited that he has written; to kindle in his reader's mind the train of emotion and association which their contemplation awakened in his own, that he has exerted all his powers. He is much more laboured and minute, in consequence, than either of his predecessors ; he records the tints, the forms, the lights, the transient effects with all a painter's enthusiasm and all a poet's power ; and succeeds, in any mind at all fa- miliar with the objects of nature, in conjuring up images as vivid, sometimes perha])s more beautiful, than the originals which he por trayed. From the greatness of his powers, however, in this respect, and the facility with which he commits to paper the whole features of the splendid phantasmagoria with which his me- mory is stored, arises the principal defect of his work ; and the circumstance which has hitherto prevented it, in this country at least, from acquiring general popularity commen- surate to its transcendent merits. He is too rich in glowing images ; his descriptions are redundant in number and beauty. The mind even of the most imaginative reader is fatigued by the constant drain upon its admiration — the fancy is exhausted in the perpetual elTort to conceive the scenes which he portrays to the eye. Images of beauty enough are to be found in his four volumes of Travels in the East, to emblazon, with the brightest colours of the rainbow, forty volumes of ordinary adventure. We long for some repose amidst the constant repetition of dazzling objects ; monotony, in sipidity, ordinary life, even dulness itself. would often be a relief amidst the ceaseless flow of rousing images. Sir Walter Scott says, in one of his novels — " Be assured that whenever I am particularly dull, it is not with- out an object;" and Lamartinc would some- times be the better of following the advice. We generally close one of his volumes with the feeling s(» well known to travellers in the Italian cities, "I hope to (Jod there is nothing more to be seen here." And having given the necessary respite of unexciting disquisition to rest our readers' minds, we shall again bring forward one of his glowing pictures: — " Between tlie sea and the last heights of Lebanon, which sink rapidly almost to the water's edge, extends a plain eight b-agues in length by one or two broad ; sandy, bare, covered only with thorny arbiilns. browsed by the camels of caravans. From ii darls out into the sea an advanced peninsula, linked to lh« I68 ALISON'S mSCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. continent only by a narrow chaussee of shining sand, borne hither by the winds of Egypt. Tyre, now called Sour by the Arabs, is situated at the extremity of this peninsula, and seems, at a distance, to rise out of the waves. The modern town, at lirst sight, has a gay and smiling appearance; but a nearer approach dispels the illusion, and exhibits only a few hundred crumbling and half-deserted houses, where the Arabs, in the evening, assemble to shelter their flocks which have browsed in the narrow plain. Such is all that now remains of the mighty Tyre. It has neither a harbour to the sea, nor a road to the land ; the prophecies have long been accomplished in regard to it. " We moved on in silence, buried in the contemplation of the dust of an empire which we trod. We followed a path in the middle of the plain of Tyre, between the town and the hills of gray and naked rock which Lebanon has thrown down towards the sea. We arrived abreast of the city, and touched a moundof sand which appears the, sole remaining ram- part to prevent it from being overwhelmed by the waves of the ocean or the desert. I thought of the prophecies, and called to mind some of the eloquent denunciations of Ezekiel. As I was making these reflections, some objects, olack, gigantic, and motionless, appeared upon ihe summit of one of the overhanging cliffs of Lebanon which there advanced far into the plain. They resembled five black statues, placed on a rock as their huge pedestal. At first Ave thought it was five Bedouins, who were there stationed to fire upon us from their inaccessible heights ; but when we were at the distance of fifty yards, we beheld one of them open its enormous wings, and flap them against its sides with a sound like the unfurl- ing of a sail. We then perceived that they were five eagles of the largest species I have ever seen, either in the Alps or our museums. They made no attempt to move when we ap- proached ; they seemed to regard themselves as kings of the desert, looked on Tyre as an appanage which belonged to them, and whither they were about to return. Nothing more supernatural ever met my eyes ; I could almost suppose that behind them I saw the terrible figure of Ezekiel, the poet of vengeance, point- ing to the devoted city which the divine wrath had overwhelmed with destruction. The dis- charge of a few muskets made them rise from their rock : but they showed no disposition to move from their ominous perch, and, soon returning, floated over our heads, regardless of the shots fired at them, as if the eagles of God were beyond the reach of human injury." — (IL 8—9.) Jerusalem M'as a subject to awaken all our author's enthusiasm, and call forth all his descriptive powers. The first approach to it has exercised the talents of many writers in prose and verse ; but none has drawn it in such graphic and brilliant colours as our author : — " We ascended a mountain ridge strewed over with enormous gray rocks piled one on another as if by human hands. Here and there a few stunted vines, yellow with the co- uch was Jerusalem during all the time that ve spent within its walls. Not a sound ever let our ears, but the neighing of the horses, i'ho grew impatient under the burning rays of .16 sun, or who furrowed the earth with their eet, as they stood picketed round our camp, ningled occasionally with the crying of the lOur from the minarets, or the mournful ca- lences of the Turks as they accompanied the lead to their cemeteries. Jerusalem, to which he world hastens to visit a sepulchre, is itself L vast tomb of a people; but it is a tomb with- )Ut cj-pre.sses, without inscriptions, without nonumcnts, of which they have broken the rravcstones, and the ashes of which appear to ■over the earth which surrounds it with mourn- ng, silence and sterility. We cast our eyes ack frequently from the top of every hill vhich we passed on this mournful and dcso- ate region, and at length we saw for the last ime, liie crown of olives which snrmnuntsthe Uount of the same name, and whith long rises iImivc the horizon after you have hist sight of he town itself. At length it also sank beneath he rocky screen, and disappeared like the 'haplets of flowers which we throw on a sc- lulrhP-."— (II. a?.-)— 27fi.) Fron> Jenisalcm he made an expedition to Oalbec in the desert, which produced the same impression upon him that it does upon all other travellers: — " We rose with the 51m, the first rays of which struck m\ the temples of Balbi-c, and ,'ave to those mysterious nuns that atttt which his brilliant light throws ever over rains which it illuminates. 9oon wc arrived, on the northern sidi-, at the foot of the gigantic walls which surround those beautiful remains. A '•'var stream, flowing over a bed qf granite, <.urmurcd around lh»! enormous blocks of stone, fallen from the top of the wall which obstructed its course. Weauliful sculptures were half concealed in the limpid stream We passed the rivulet by an arch formed by these fallen remains, and mounting a narrow breach, were soon lost in admiration of the scene which surrounded us. At every step a fresh exclamation of surprise broke from our lips. Every one of the stones of which that wall was composed was from eight to ten feet in length, by five or six in breadth, and as much in height. They rest, without cement, one upon the other, and almost all bear the mark of Indian or Egyptian sculpture. At a single glance, you see that these enormous stones are not placed in their original site- that they are the precious remains of temples of still more remote antiquity, which were made use of to encircle this colony of Grecian and Roman citizens. " When we reached the summit of the breach, our eyes knew not to what object first to turn. On ail sides were gates of marble of prodigious height and magnitude ; windows or niches, fringed with the richest friezes ; fallen pieces of cornices, of entablatures, or capitals, thick as the dust beneath our feet ; magnificent vaulted roofs above our heads; everywhere a chaos of confused beauty, the remains of which lay scattered about, or piled on each other in endless variety. So prodigious was the accumulation of architectural remains, that it defies all attempts at classification, or conjecture of the kind of buildings to which the greater part of them had belonged. After passing through this scene of ruined magnifi- cence, we reached an inner wall, which we also ascended; and from its summit the view of the interior was yet more splendid. Of much greater extent, far more richly decorated than the outer circle, it presented an immense platform in the form of a long rectangle, the level surface of which was frequently broken by the remains of still more elevated pave- ments, on which temples to the sun, the object of adoration at Balbec, had been erected. All around that jdatform were a series of lesser tem])les — or chapels, as weshmild call them — decorated with niches, admirably engraved, and loaded with sculptured ornaments to a de- gree that appeared excessive to those who had seen the severe simplicity of the Parlhenon or the Coliseum. Ihit how prodigious the accu- mulation of architectural riches in the middle of an eastern desert ! Combine in imagination the Temple of Jupiter Slator and the Coliseum at Roim-. of Jupiter Olympius and the .\cropo- lis at Athens, and you will yet fall short of that marvellous assemblage of admirable edifices and sculptures. Many of lh(! temples rest on columns seventy feet in height, and seven feet in diameter, yet composed only of two or three blocks of stone, so perfectly joined locreiher that to this day you can barely discrm the lines of their junction. Sili-nce is ilf only language which befits man when words are inade(|uatc to convey his imp-- " ""• We remained mute with admiratifm n the eternal luins. "The shades of night overtook us while we yet rested in amazement at the scene by which 170 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. we were surrounded. One by one the\' enve- loped tlie columns intheirobscurity, and added a mystery the more to that magical and mys- terious work of time and man. We ajij)earcd, as compared with the gigantic mass and long duration of these monuments, as the swallows which nestle a season in the crevices of the capitals, without knowing by whom, or for whom, they have been constructed. The thoughts, til? wishes, which moved these masses, are to is unknown. The dust of marble which we tread beneath our feet knows more of it than we do, but it cannot tell us what it has seen ; and in a few ages the generations which shall come in their turn to visit our monuments, will ask, in like manner, wherefore we have built and engraved. The works of man survive his thought. Movement is the law of tlie human mind ; the definite is the dream of his pride and his ignorance. God is a limit which appears ever to recede as hu- manity approaches him ; we are ever advanc- ing, and never arrive. This great Divine Fi- gure which man from his infancy is ever striv- ing to reach, and to imprison in his structures raised by hands, for ever enlarges and ex- pands; it outsteps the narrow limits of tem- ples, and leaves the altars to crumble into dust; and calls man to seek for it where alone it resides — in thought, in intelligence, in vir- tue, in nature, in infinity."— (II. 39, 46, 47.) This passage conveys an idea of the peculiar style, and perhaps unique charm, of Lamar- tine's work. It is the mixture of vivid paint- ing with moral reflection — of nature with sen- timent — of sensibility to beaut3%with gratitude to its Author, which constitutes its great attrac- tion. Considering in what spirit the French Revolution was cradled, and from what infide- lity it arose, it is consoling to see such senti- ments conceived and published among them. True they are not the sentiments of the major- ity, at least in towns; but what then? The majority is ever guided by the thoughts of the great, not in its own but a preceding age. It is the opinions of the great among our grand- fathers that govern the majority at this time ; our great men will guide our grandsons. If we would foresee what a future age is to think, we must observe what a few great men are now thinking. Voltaire and Rousseau have ruled France for two generations ; the day of Chateaubriand and Guizot and Lamar- tine will come in due time. But the extraordinary magnitude of these ruins in the middle of an Asiatic wilderness, sugsests another consideration. We are per- petually speaking of the march of intellect, the vast spread of intelligence, the advancing civi- lization of the world ; and in some respect our boasts are well founded. Certainl}', in one particular, society has made a mighty step in advance. The abolition of domestic slavery has emancipated the millions who formerly toiled in bondage ; the art of printing has mul- tiplied an hundred fold the reading and think- ing world. Our opportunities, therefore, have been prodigiously enlarged ; our means of ele- vation are tenfold what they were in ancient times. But has our elevation itself kept pace ■with these enlarged means ? Has the in- creased direction of the oopuiar mind to lofty and spiritual objects, the more complete subju. gation of sense, the enlarged perception of the { useful and the beautiful, been in proportion] to the extended facilities given to the gre^^ body of the people t Alas ! the fact is just tlw reverse. Balbec was a mere station in the desert, without territor}', harbour, or subjects — maintained solely by the commerce of the East with Europe which flowed through its walls. Yet Balbec raised, in less than a cen- tur}^ a more glorious pile of structures de« voted to religious and lofty objects, than Lon- don, Paris, and St. Petersburg united can now boast. The Decapolis was a small and remote mountain district of Palestine, not larger in proportion to the Roman, than Morayshire is in propoVtion to the British empire; yet it contained, as its name indicates, and as their remains still attest, ten cities, the least consi- derable of which, Gebora, contains, as Buck- ingham tells us in his Travels beyond the Jordan, the ruins of more sumptuous edifices than any city in the British islands, London itself not ex- cepted, can now boast. It was the same all over the east, and in all the southern provinces of the Roman empire. Whence has arisen this asto- nishing disproportion between the great things done by the citizens in ancient and in modern times, M'hen in the latter the means of enlarged cultivation have been so immeasurabl)^ extend- ed 1 It is in vain to say, it is because we have more social and domestic happiness, and our wealth is devoted to these objects, not external embellishment. Social and doxnestic happiness are in the direct,notin the inverse ratio of gene- ral refinement and the spread of intellectual intelligence. The domestic duties are better nourished in the temple than in the gin-shop ; the admirers of sculpture will make belter fathers and husbands than the lovers of whisky. Is it that we want funds for such undertakings ] Wh}'-, London is richer than ever Rome was ; the commerce of the world, not of the eastern caravans, flows through its bosom. The sums annually squandered in Manchester and Glas- gow on intoxicating liquors, would soon maJce them rival the eternal structures of Tadmor and Palmyra. Is it that the great bulk of our people are unavoidably chained by their cha- racter and climate to gross and degrading en- joyments ? Is it that the spreading of know- ledge, intelligence, and free institutions, only confirms the sway of sensual gratification ; and that a pure and spiritual religion tends only to strengthen the fetters of passion and self- ishness] Is it that the inherent depravity of the human heart appears the more clearly as man is emancipated from the fetters of autho- rity : must we go back to early ages for noble and elevated motives of action ; is the spread of freedom but another word for the extension of brutality? God forbid that so melancholy a doctrine should have any foundation in hu- man nature ! We mention the facts, and leave it to future ages to discover their solution: contenting ourselves with pointing out to our self-applauding countrymen how much they have to do before they attain the level of their advantages, or justify the boundless blessings which Providence has bestowed upon them. LAMARTINE. 171 The plain of Tro)', seen b)' mooiili:rlit, fur- nishes the subject of one of our autlior's most Striking passages. "It is midnight: the sea is calm as a mir- ror; the vessel floats motionless on the re- splendent surface. On our left, Tenedos rises above tiie waves, and shuts out tlic view of the open sea ; on our right, and close to us. stretched out like a dark bar. the low shore and indented coasts of TnoT. The full moon, which rises behind the snow-streaked summit of Mount Ida, sheds a serene and doubtful light over the summits of the mountains, the hills, the plain; its extending rays fall upon the sea, and reach the shadow of our brig, forming a bright path which the shades do not venture to approach. We can discern the tumuli, Avhich tradition still marks as the tombs of Hector and Patroclus. The full moon, slightly tinged with red, which discloses the undulations of the hills, resembles the bloody buckler of Achilles ; no light is to be seen on the coast, but a distant twinkling, lighted by the shepherds on Mount Ida — not a sound is to be heard but the flapping of the sail on the mast, and the slight creaking of the mast itself; all seems dead, like the past, in that deserted land. Seated on the forecastle, I see that shore, those mountains, those ruins, those tombs, rise like the ghost of the departed world, reappear from the bosom of the sea with shadowy form, by the rays of the star of night, which sleep on the hills, and disappear as the moon recedes behind the summits of the moun- tains. It is a beautiful additional page in the poems of Homer, the end of all history and of all poetry! Unknown tombs, ruins without a certain name ; the earth naked and dark, but imperfectly lighted by the immortal luminaries ; new spectators passing by the old coast, and repeating for the thousandth time the common epitaph of mortality! Here lies an empire, here a town, here a people, here a hero ! God alnne is great, and the thought which seeks and adores him alone is imperishable upon earth. I feel no desire to make a nearer ap- proach in daylight to the doubtful remains of the ruins of Tro)'. I prefer that nocturnal ap- paritiiin which allows the thought to repeopic those deserts, and sheds over them only the dis- t.ant light of the moon and of the poetry of Homer. And what concerns me Tmy, its heroes, and its gods ! That leaf of the heroic world is turned for ever !"— (II. 218—2.50,) What a magnificent testimonial to the genius of Homer, written in a foreign tongue, two thoiis.Trid seven hundred years after his death ! The Dardanelles and the IJosphorus have, from the dawn of letters, excrciseil the descrip- tive talents of the greatest historians of modem Europe. The truthful chronicle of Villchar- douin, and the elo(|uent pictures of Gibbon and ^ of the siege of Constantinople, will i '•''•ly occur to every scholar. The fol- lowing passage, however, will show that no subject can be worn out when it is handled by ihc pen of genius : "It was five in the morning. I w.is standing on deck; we made sail towards the mouth of tie Bosphorus, skirting the walls of Constan- inople. Afler half an hour's navigation through ships at anchor, we touched the walls of the seraglio, which prolongs those of the city, and form at the extremity of the hill which supt ports the proud Stamboul, the angle which separates the sea of Marmora from the canal of the Bosphorus, and the harbour of the Gold' en Horn. It is there that God and man, na- ture and art, have combined to form the most marvellous spectacle which the human eye can behold. I uttered an involuntary cry when the magnificent panorama opened upon my sight; I forgot for ever the bay of Naples and all its enchantments ; to compare any thing to that marvellous and graceful combination would be an injury to the fairest work of creation "The walls which support the circular ter- races of the immense gardens of the seraglio were on our left, with their base perpetually washed by the -wafers of the Bosphorus, blue and limpid as the Rhone at Geneva; the ter- races which rise one above another to the pa- lace of the sultana, the gilded cupolas of which rose above the gigantic summits of the plane- tree and the cypress, were themselves clothed, with enormous trees, the trunks of which over- hang the walls, while their branches, over- spreading the gardens, spread a deep shadow even far into the sea, beneath the protection of which the panting rowers repose from their toil. These stately groups of trees are from time to time interrupted by palaces, pavilions, kiosks, gilded and sculptured domes, or bat- teries of cannon. These maritime palaces form part of the seraglio. You see occasionally through the muslin curtains the gilded roofs and sumptuous cornices of those abodes of beauty. At every step, elegant Moorish foun- tains fall from the higher parts of tlie gardens, and murmur in marble basins, from whence, before reaching the sea, they are conducted in little cascades to refresh the passengers. As the vessel coasted the walls, the prospect ex- panded — the coast of Asia appeared, and the mouth of the Bosphorus, properly so called, began to open between hills, on one side of dark green, on the other of smiling verdure, which seemed variegated by all the colours of the rainbow. 'I'he smiling shores of Asia, dis- tant about a mile, stretched out to our right, surmounted by lofty hills, sharp at the top, and clothed to the summit with dark forests, with their sides varied by hedge-rows, villas, or- chards, and gardens. Deep precipitous ravines occasionally descended on this side into the sea, r)vershadowed by huge overgrown oaks, the branches of which dipped into the water. Fur- ther on still, on the .Asiatic side, an advanced headland projected into the waves, rovered with white hou'^es — it was Soiiiari, with its vast whilrt barracks, its resplcn great distinction, which really occasions the phenomenon. Strange as it may appear, it is a fact abundantly proved by literary historj', and which may be verified by ever}' day's ex- perience, that men are in general insensible to the highest class of intellectual merit when it first appears, and that it is by slow degrees and the opinion oft repeated, of the really su- perior in successive generations, that it is at length raised to its deserved and lasting pedes- tal. There are instances to the contrary, such as Scott and Byron : but they are the excep- tion, not the rule. We seldom do justice but to the dead. Contemporary jealousy, liternry envy, general timidity, the dread of ridicuN-, th« confusion of rival works, form so many obsta- cles to the speedy acquisition of a great living reputation. To the illustrious of past ages, however, we pay a universal and willing homage. Contemporary genius appears M-ilh a twinkling and uncertain glow, like the shift- ing and confused lights of a great city seen at night from a distance : while the spirits of the dead shine with an imperishable lustre, far re- moved in the upper firmament from the dis- tractions of the rivalry of a lower world. THE COPYRIGIIT UUESTION/ Whot-vkti has contemplated of late years the state of British literature, and compared it with the works of other countries who have preceded England in the career of arts or of arms, must have become sensible that some very power- ful cause has, for a long period, been at work- in producing the ephemeral character by which It is at present distinguished. It is a matter of common complaint, that everything is now sacrificed to the desires or the gratification of the moment ; that philosophy, descending from its hisrh station as the instructor of men, has degenerated into the mere handmaid of art; that literature is devoted rather to afford amuse- ment for a passing hour, than furnish improve- ment to a long life ; and that poetry itself has become rather the reflection of the fleeting fervour of the public mind, than the well from which noble and elevated sentiments are to be derived. We have only to take up the columns of a newspaper, to see how varied and endless are the efforts made to amuse the public, and how few the attempts to instruct or improve them; and if we examine the book's which lie tiprm every drawing-room table, or the cata- logues which show the purchases that have ' been made by any of the numerous book-clubs or circulating libraries which have sprung up ! in the country, we shall feel no surprise at the I ephemeral nature of the literature which abounds, from the evidence there afforded of the transitory character of the public wishes which require to be gratified. It is not to be supposed, however, from this circumstance, which is so well known as to have attracted universal observation, that the taste for standard or more solid literature has either materially declined, or is in any danger of becoming extinct. Decisive evidence to tlie contrary is to be found in the fart, that a greater number of reprints of standard work's, both on theology, history, and philosophy, have issued from the press within the last ten years, than in any former corresponding period of British history. And what is still more re- markable, and not a little gratifying, it is cvi- • ninrkwooH's Mngnr.lne. Jnniinry, 1848.— Written when I.orrI Malinn'* r'npyri({ht Bill, since pa*acd Into a Uw, was before rarllnmcnt. dent, from the very different character and price of the editions of the older works which have been published of late years, that the de- sire to possess these standard works, and this thirst for solid information, is not confined to any one class of society ; but that it embraces all ranks, and promises, before a long period has elapsed, to extend through the middle and even the working classes in the state a mass of useful and valuable information to which they have hitherto, in great part at least, been strangers. Not to mention tiie great extent to which extracts from these more valuable works have appeared in Chambers' Journal, the Penny Magazines, and other similar publications of the day, it is sufficient to mention two facts, which show at once what a thirst for valuable information exists among the middle classes of society. Regularly every two years, there issues from the press a new edition of (Uhlmn's Rome; and Burke's Works are now published, one year, in sixteen handsome volumes octavo, for the peer and the legislator, and next year in two volumes royal octavo, in double ct>- lumns, for the tradesman and the shopkeeper. As little is the false and vitiated taste of our general literature the result of any want of ability which is now directed to its prosecution. We have only to examine the periodical litera- ture, or criticism of the day, to be convinced that the talent which is now devoted to litera- ture is incomparably greater than it ever was in any former period of our histon'; and that ample genius exists in Great Britain, to render this age as distinguished in philosophy and the higher branches of knowledge, as the hi^t was in military prowess and martial renown. If anyone doubts this, let him compare the milk- .and-watcr pages of the Monlhlij Hrvlnr forty years ago, with the brilliant critici-^ms of Lockhart and Macaulay in the QuiirUrltj or Kii- inlmriih Review at this time ; or the periodical literature at the close of the war. with thai which is now to be seen in the standard ma- gazines of the present day. To a person habituated to the dazzling conceptions of the periodical writers in these times, the rorre sponding literature in the eighteenth century appears insupportably pedantic and tediou.s 174 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Nobody now reads the Rambkr or the Itllir: and the colossal reputation of Johnson rests almost entirely upon his profound and caustic sayings recorded in Boswell. Even the !^pir- tator itself, though universally praised, is by no means now generally read; and nothing but the exquisite beauty of some of Addison's papers, prevents the Delias and Lucindas, who figure in its pages, from sinking them into irrecoverable obscurity. Here then is the marvel of the present time. We have a population, in which, from the rapid extent of knowledge among all classes, a more extended class of readers desiring in- formation is daily arising; in which the great and standard works of literature in theolog}', philosophy, and history, are constantly issuing in every varied form from the press ; in which unparaileled talent of every description is con- stantly devoted to the prosecution of literature ; but in which the new zvorks given forth from the press are, with very few exceptions, fri- volous or ephemeral, and the greater part of the serious talents of the nation is turned into the perishable channels of the daily, weekly, monthly, or the quarterly press. That such a state of things is anomalous and extraordinary, few probably will doubt ; but that it is alarm- ing and prejudicial in a national point of view, and ma)', if it continues unabated, produce both a degradation of the national character, and, in the end, danger or ruin to the national fortunes, though not so generallj' admitted, is not the less true, nor the less capable of demonstra- tion. In the first place, this state of things, when the whole talent of the nation is directed to t)eriodical literature, or works of evanescent interest, has a tendency to degrade the national character, because it taints the fountains from which the national thought is derived. We possess, indeed, in the standard literature of Great Britain, a mass of thoughts and ideas which may well make the nation immortal, and which, to the end of time, will constitute the fountains from which grand and generous thoughts will be drawn by all future races of men. But the existence of these standard works is not enough ; still less is it enough in an age of rapid progress and evident transition, such as the present, when new interests are every- where arising, new social and political com- binations emerging, new national dangers to be guarded against, new national virtues to be required. For a nation in such a state of society to remain satisfied with its old standard literature, and not to aspire to produce any thing which is at once durable and new, is the same solecism as it would be for a man to re- main content with a wardrobe of fifty years' standing, and resolutely to resist the introduc- tion of any of the fashions or improvements of later times. A nation which aspires to retain its eminence either in arts or in arms, must keep abreast of its neighbours; if it does not advance, it will speedily fall behind, be •Jirown into the shailc, and decline. It is not sufficient for England to refer to the works of Milton, Shakspeare, Johnson, or Scott ; she must prolong the race of these great men, or Ik'i iiiielleclual career will speedily come to a close. Short and fleeting indeed is the period of transcendant greatness allotted to any na- tion in any branch of thought. The moment i it stops, it begins to recede ; and to every em pire which has made intellectual triumphs, is prescribed the same law which was felt by Napoleon in Europe and the British in India, that conquest is essential to existence. But if the danger to our national literature is great, if the intellect and genius of Britain do not keep pace with the high destinies to Avhich she is called, and' the unbounded men- tal activity with which she is surrounded, much more serious is the peril thence inevit- ably accruing to the national character and i the public fortunes. Whence is it that the I noble and generous feelings are derived, which in time past have animated the breasts of our patriots, our heroes, and our legislators? Where, but in the immortal pages of our poets, our orators, and historians? What noble sentiments has the air of " Rule Britan- nia" awakened; how many future Nelsons may the "Mariners of England," or Southey's inimitable " Lives of our Naval Heroes" pro- duce? Sentiments such as these immortal works imbody, "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," are the true national inhe- ritance ; they constitute the most poM-erful elements of national strength, for they form the character, without which all others are una- vailing; they belong alike to the rich and to the poor, to the prince and to the peasant ; they form the unseen bond which links to- gether the high and the low, the rich and the poor; and which, penetrating and pervading every class of society, tend both to perpetuate the virtues which have brought us to our pre- sent greatness, and arrest the decline, Avhich the influx of wealth, and the prevalence of commercial ideas, might otherwise have a tendency to produce. What would be the efl'ect upon the fortunes of the nation, if this pure and elevated species of literature were to cease amongst us ; if every thing were to be brought down to the cheapest market, and adapted to the most ordinary capacity ; if cutr ting articles for reviews, or dashing stories for magazines, were henceforth to form our staple literature ; and the race of the Milions, the Shakspeares, the Grays, and the Camp- bells, was to perish under the cravings of an utilitarian age? We may safely say that the national character would decline, the national spirit become enfeebled ; that generous senti- ments would be dried up under the influence of transient excitement, and permanent resolve be extinguished by the necessity of present gain ; and that the days of Clive and Wellesley in India, and of Nelson and Wellington in Europe, would be numbered among the things that have been. But if such dangers await us iTont the gradual extinction of the higher and nobler branches of our literature, still more serious are the evils which are likely to arise from the termination of the more elevated class of works in history, philosophy, and theology, which are calculated and are fitted to guide and direct the national thought. The dangers of such a ca lamitj', though pot so apparent at first sight THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION. 175 are. in reality, still more serious. For whence IS tlie thought deriveil which governs the world; the spirit whicli sjuidcs its movements; the rashness which mars its fortunes; the wisdom which guards against its dangers? Whence but from the great fountains of original thought, which are never unlocked in any age but to the few master-spirits tiinnvn at distant intervals by God among mankind. Tiie press, usually and justly deemed so powerful; the public voice, whose thunders shake the land; the le- gislature, which imbodies and perpetuates, by legal force, its cravings, are themselves but the reverberation of the thought of the great of the preceding age. The tempests sweep round and agitate the globe ; but it is to the wisdom of Juno alone that jEoIus opens the cavern of Uie winds. This truth is unpalatable to the masses; it is distasteful to legislators; it is irksome to statesmen, who conceive they enjoy, and appear to have, ihc direction of affairs; but it is illus- trated by ever)- page of history, and a clear perception of its truth constitutes one of the most essential requisites of wise government. In vain docs the ruling power, whether mo- narchical, aristocratic, or republican, seek to escape from the government of thought: it is itself under the direction of the great intellects of the preceding age. When it thinks it is original, Avhen it is most fearlessl)'- asserting its boasted inherent power of self-government, it is itself obeying the impulse communicated to the human mind by the departed great. All the marked movements of mankind, all the evident turns or wrenches communicated to the current of general opinion, have arisen from the efforts of individual genius The age must have been prepared for them, or their effect would have been small ; but the age without them would never have disco- vered the light: the rellectod sunbeams must have been descending on the mountains, but his earliest rays strike first on the summit. Who turned mankind from the abuses of the Roman Catholic church, and preserved the primeval simplicity of Christianity from the pernicious indulgences of the Cliurrli of lioinc, and opened a new era of religious light to both hemispheres! .Martin Luther. Who fearlessly led his trembling mariners across the seem- ingly interminable deserts of the .Atlantic wave, and disfiivercd at length the new woriil, whicli had haunted even his infant ilrrains? Chris- topher Columbus. Who turned mankind aside from the returning circle of syllogistic argu- ment lo the true method of philosophic inves- tigation 1 Lord li.irim. Who iniroilucrd a new code into the contests of iiatinns, ami sub- jected even the savage passions of war to a human ciMJc! Grotius. The intlurncc of Mon- tesquieu has been felt for above a century in every country of Europe, in social philosophy. Who discovered the mechanism of the uni- verse, and traced the same law in the fall of an apple as the giant orbit of the comets! Sir Isaac Newton. Who carried the torch of severe and sagacious inquiry into recesses of the human mind, and weaned men froin the endless maze (vf metaphysical ."scepticism ! Dr. Reid, Who produced the fervent spint which, veiled in philanthropy, redolent of be- nevolence, was so soon lo be extinguished in the blood of the French Revolution! Rms- seau and Voltaire. Who discovered the rnira* cle of steam, and impelled civilization, as by the force of centr.-vl heat, to the desert places of the earth ! .lames Watt. What unheeded power shook even the solid fabric of the British constitution, and all but destroyed, hy seeking unduly to extend, the liberties of Eng- land ? Lord Brougham, and the Edinburgh Reviewers. Whose policy has ruled the com- mercial system of England for twenty years, and by the false applicniion of just nlmlrdci prin- ciples overthrew the Whig ministry! Adam Smith. Whose spirit arrested the devastation of the French Revolution, and checked the madness of the English reformers ! Edmund Burke. Who is the real parent of the blind and heartless delusion of the New Poor-Law Bill ? Mallhus. Who have elevated men from the baseness of utilitarian worship to the gran- deur of menial elevation! Coleridge and Wordsworth. All these master-spirits, for good or for evil, communicated their own im- press to the generation which succeeded them ; the seed sown took often many years to come to maturity, and many different hands, often a new generation, were required to reap it; but when the harvest appeared, it at once was manifest whose hand had sown the seed. " Show me what one or two great men, de- tached from public life, but with minds full, which must be disburdened, are thinking in their closets in this age, and I will tell you what will be the theme of the orator, the study of the philosopher, the staple of the press, the guide of the statesman, in the next." Observe, too — and this is a most essential point in the present argument — that all these great efforts of thought which have thus given a mighty heave to human affairs, and, in the end, have .fairly turned aside into a new channel even the broad and varied stream of general thought, have been in dircrt rnntnulic- linn to the spirit of the age by which they were surrounded, and which swayed alike the communities, the press, and the government, under the inlluence of which they were placed. Action and reaction appear to be the great law, not less of the moral than the material world} the counteracting principles, which, like the centripetal and centrifugal force in physics, maintain, amid its perpetual oscilla- tion, the general equilibrium of the universe. But whence is to come the reaction, if the human mind, influenced by the press, is itself retained in a self-revolving circle! if reviews, magazines, and journ.vls, all yielding to, or falling in with, the taste of the majority, tlirect and form public opinion: if individual ih. ii','ht is nothing hut the perpetual rc- vious, and universally observed. " The tim« has come," says Sir Edward Bulwer,* one o,f the brightest ornaments of the liberal scho*,,: "when nobody will fit out a ship for the intAi lectual Columbus to discover new worlds, bjs when everybody will subscribe for his setting up a steamboat between Dover and Calais. The immense superficies of the public, as it has now become, operates two ways in de- tracting from the profundity of writers — it renders it no longer necessary for an author to make himself profound before he writes ; and it encourages those M-rilers who are pro- found, by every inducement, not of lucre mere- ly, but of fame, to exchange deep writing for agreeable writing. The voice which animktes the man ambitious of wide fame, does not, ac- cording to the beautiful line in Rogers, whis- per to him, 'Aspire, but descend.' He must 'stoop to conquer.' Thus, if we look abroad in France, where the reading public is much less numerous than in England, a more subtle and refined tone is prevalent in literature; while in America, where it is infinitel)' larger, the literature is incomparably more superfi- cial. Some high-souled literary men, indeed, desirous rather of truth than of fame, are ac- tuated unconsciously by the spirit of the times ; but actuated they necessarily are, just as the wisest orator who uttered only philosophy to a thin audience of Sages, and mechanically abandons his refinements and his reasonings, and expands into a louder tone and more fami- liar manner as the assembly increases, and the temper of the popular mind is insensibly communicated to the mind that addresses it." " There is in great crowds," says Cousin, " an ascendant which is almost magical, which subdues at once the strongest minds; and the same man who had been a serious and in- structive professor to a hundred thoughtful students, soon becomes light and superficial where he is called to address a more extended and superficial audience." There can be no doubt of the justice of the principles advanced by these profound writers : in truth, they are not new ; they have been known and acted upon in every age of mankind. — "You are wrong to pride yourself," said the Grecian sage to an Athe- nian orator, who first delivered a speech amidst the thundering acclamations of his audience ; " if you had spoken truly, these men would have given no signs of approba tion." It is in the extension of the power of judging of literary compositions — of confer- ring wealth and bestowing fame on their au- thors — to the vast and excitable, but superficial mass of mankind, that the true cause of the ephemeral and yet entrancing and exciting cliaracter of the literature of the present age is to be found. Some superficial observers imagine that the taste for novels and romances will wear itself out, and an appreciation of a • England and English, p. 440. THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION. 177 hiffher class of literature sproad frrnmlly am .[»; while the numerous vicissitU''-- o which they arc exposed by commercial •'■ iTPss, ' 1 many places, given a serii'u and r turn to their minds, which will rarely be met with amidst the frivolitii-s nf ihi- hiRher, or the selfish pursuits of the m Ill- ranks. In assemblies of the working < brought tc^i'thrr by thf call for s u, and not p.ihiH-.il ..l.-ci, as ihr> pi .if rr- • r. have adli -111 them without obser^'ing that he cannot state his argument loo closely, en- force it with facts too forcibly, or attrnd to the graces of composition with too sedulous ear«. But all this notwithstanding, it is in v« n to 12 expect that the patronage or support of the middle or working classes is ever to aflurd a suflicient inducement to secure works cither of profound or elevated thought, or of the highest excellence in any branch either of poetry, philosophy, history, or economics. The reason is, that it is only bv appealing to principles or ideas alrcmhj m nc fami- liar to the p,rcat body of the ]» < , , ■ ynu can ever succeed in making any impression upon them. Truth, if altogether new, is, in the first instance at least, thrown away upon them ; it is of exceeding slow descent, even thmugh the most elevated intellects of the middle classes; upon the working it produces at first no eliect whatever. The reason is, that the great majority of them have not intellects suf- ficiently strong to make at once the transition from long cherished error to truth, unless the evils of their former opinions have been long and forcibly brought before their senses. If that be the case, indeed, the humblest classes are the very first to see the light. Witness the Reformation in Germany, or the Revolu- tion in France. They are so, because they arc less interested than their superiors in the maintenance of error. But if the new disco- veries of thought relate not to present but re- mote evils, and do Qot appeal to what is universally known to the senses, but only to what may with difficulty be gathered from study or reflection, nothing is more certain than that the progress even of truth is exceed- ingly slow — that the human mind is to the last degree reluctant to admit any great change of opinion ; and that, in general, at least one generation must descend to their graves before truths, ultimately deemed the most obvious, are gradually' forced upon the reluctant con- sent of mankind. Mr. I3urke's speeches never were popular in the House of Commons, and his rising up acted like a dinner-bell in thin- ning the benches. Aow his words are dwelt on by the wise, quoted by the eiofpient, dif- fused among the many. Oratory, to be popu- lar, must be in advance of the audience, and hut a little in advance; profound thi>ii„'ht may rule mankitid in future, but unless stimulated by causes obvious to all, will do lilile for pre- sent reputation. Hence it was that Bacon bequeanicd his reputation to the generation afii-r the next. .\s little is there any reason to hope that the obvious and gratifying return to serious and • iiulard publications, evinced by the numcr- I eprinis of our classical writers that issue 11. in the press, can be taken as any suHir indication that there exists in the jiublic i an adequate antidote to these evils. Thi' i of these reprints of standard works issu : ^ iVoin the press, certainly proves sufficiently that there is a class, and a numrr " t o, of persftns who, howcvt^r much i il literature as an ainii-^ I look to our standanl \i volumes which are to fill their librar.'"'. Hut that by no means nfl"ords a suflicic ' -i ■, ,i.i.-e that the public will give any ei. ■ t toll .1 woi . temper ol the national mind. Tiicrc o a must 178 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. material difTorcnce between the reprint of a standard Imok, which has already acijiiircd a fixed rei)ulation, and the composition of a new work of a serious and conlemphitive caht, es- pecially by an unknown author, and more particularly if it is in opposition to the i?eneral current of public opinion. It may safely be predicted of such a work, that if it really con- tains new and important truths, it Avill be dis- tasteful to the majority of readers in all classes; and that whatever fame may in future be be- stowed on its author, or however widely it may hereafter be read by the public, or command the assent of mankind, he will be in his grave before either eflect takes place. Adam Smith, if we mistake not, had died before the Wealth of Ndtidiis had got past even a second edition, certainly before its principles had made any material progress in the general mind. Seve- ral years had elapsed before a hundred copies of Mr. Hume's History were sold ; and he him- self has told us, that nothing but the earnest entreaties of his friends induced him, in the face of such a cold and chilling reception, to continue his historical labours. Although, therefore, there exists a steady demand for standard classical works, it is by no means equally apparent that any thing like an ade- quate encouragement in the general case for the composition of nciv standard works, is to be found in the present state of society. Few men have the self-denial, like Bacon, to be- queath their reputation to the generation after the next, and to labour for nothing during the whole of their own lifetime; and the chance of finding persons who will do so, is much diminished, when society has reached that period in which, by simply lowering his mode of composition, and descending from being the instructor to be the amuser of men, the author can obtain both profit and celebrity from a numerous and flattering class of readers. Nor is there the slightest ground for the hope, that the strong diversion of philosophi- cal and literary talent into the periodical litera- ture of the day, has only turned it into a new channel, and not diminished its amount or im- paired its usefulness. If we contemplate, indeed, the periodical literature of the day, every one must be struck with astonishment at the prodigious amount and versatility of talent which it displays. But how much of that has realized itself in works of a perma- nent or durable character, calculated to instruct or delight future ages i Turn to the early criticisms of the Edinhurs^h Hcvinv, flowing, as they did, from the able and varied pens of Brougham, Jefl'rey, and Sydney Smith, and see how many of them will stand the test which thirty years' subsequent experience has aflbi'd- ed ? Few persons now read the early cri- tiques in the Qnurtnli/ Juriar, supported as Ihey were by the talent of Gifl'ord, Lockhart, Croker, and Dudley, which aflbrds decisive evidence of the way in which each succeeding wave of periodical criticism buries in oblivion the last. Various attempts have been made to select from the immense mass of these periodi- cals, such of the pieces as appeared likely to attract permanent interest; but none of them have any remarkable success, if avc except the best criticisms of Jefl!"rey and the splendid essays of Macaulay, which have formed a valuable addition to our standard literature. The reason why periodical essays, how able soever, seldom succeed in acquiring a lasting reputation, is this. It is too deeplj' impreg- nated with the passions, the interests, and the errors of the moment. This arises from the same cause which Bulwer and Cousin have remarked as necessarily changing the character of oratory in proportion to the size of the audi- ence to which it is addressed. Temporary literature necessarily shares in the temporary nature of the passions of which it is the mirror. Every one who is accustomed to that species of composition knows, that if he does not strike at the prevailing feeling of the moment, in the great majority of his readers he will produce no sort of impression, and he will very soon find his contributions returned upon his hand by the editor. " The great talent of Mirabeau," says Dumont, "consisted in this, that he in- tuitively saw to what point in the minds of his audience to apply his strength, and he sent it home there with the strength of a giant." That is precisely the talent required in periodical literature ; and accordingly, every one engaged in it, is aware that he writes an article for a magazine or review in a verj' difierent style from what he does in any composition intended for durable existence. If we turn to the politi- cal articles in any periodical ten or fifteen years old, what a multitude of facts do we find distorted, of theories disproved by the result, of anticipations which have proved fallacious, of hopes which have terminated only in disap- pointment 1 This is no reproach to the writers. It is the necessary result of literary and philo- sophical talent keenly and energetically applied to the interests of the hour. It is in the cool shade of retirement, and by men detached from the contests of the world, that truth in social and moral affairs is really to be discovered; but how are we to look for that quality amidst the necessary cravings of an excited age, seek- ing after something new in fiction, or the passions of a divided community finding vent on politics in the periodical press 1 The great profits which now accrue to authors who are lucky enough to hit upon a popular view with the public, is another cir- cumstance which tends most powerfully to stamp this fleeting and impassioned character, both upon our creations of imagination and periodical eff^usions of political argument. The days are gone past when Johnson wrote in a garret in Fleet Street the sonorous periods which a subsequent century have admired, under the name of Chatham. The vast in- crease of readers, particularly in the middle and lower ranks, has opened sources of literary profit, and avenues to literary distinction, un- known in any former age. A successful article in a magazine or review brings a man into notice in the literary world, just as cfl!ectually as a triumphant dcLi't makes the fortune of an actress or singer. But how is this success to be kept up? or how is this profit to be con- tinued T Not certainly by turning aside from periodical literature to the cool shades of medi* tation or retirement, but by engaging still more THE COPYRIGHT QUESTIOX. i79 |ee<7 in the stirring bustle of the times; hy catering to the craving for continueil excite- ment, or plunging into the stream of turbulent politics. If, instead of doing so, he sits "on a hill retired," and labours for the benefit of mankind, and the instruction of posterity in a future age, he will soon find the cold shoulder of the public turned towards him. He may acquire immortal fame by his labours, but he will soon find that, unless he has a profession or independent fortune, he is gradually verging towards a neglected home — the garret. Where- as, if he engages in the pursuit of fiction, or plunges into the stream ot politics, he will ere- long be gratified by finding, if he has talents adequate to the "undertaking, that fame and fortune pour in upon him, that his society is courted, and his name celebrated, and not un- frequently political patronage rewards passing talent or service with durable honours or rewards. Nothing, indeed, is more certain than that nothing great, either in philosophy, literature, or art, was ever purchased by gold ; that genius unfolds her treasures to disinterested votaries only; and that but one reason can be assigned why such clusters of great men occasionally appear in the world, that "God Almight}'," in Hallam's words, "has chosen at those times to create them." But admitting that neither gold nor honours can purchase genius, or unlock truth, the question is, to what extent they may Hraw aside talent, even of the highest class, from the cold and shivering pinnacles of meditation and thought, into the rich and flowery vales of politics, amusement, or imagination. The point is not what they can do, but what they can cause to be left unrhnc. Doubtless there are occasionally to be found men of the very 'highest character of intellect and principle, who, born to direct mankind, feel their destiny, and, in defiance of all the seductions of fame or interest, pursue it with invincible perseverance .0 the end. But such men are rare; they sel- lom appear more than once in a generation. \bovc all, they arc least likely to arise, and nost likely to be diverted from their proper lestiny in an age of commercial opulence and jrealness, or of strong political or social ex- titement. The universal thirst for gold, the general experience of its necessity to confer lot merely comfort but respectability — the faci- ity with which genius may acquire it, if it will ■ondcscend to fall in with the temper of the imes — the utter barrenness of its cflorls, if it ndiilges merely in the abstract pursuit of truth, low clearly soever destined fnr imrnnrtality in . future age — the distinction to be immediately cquircd by lending its aid to thq slrifcof parlies, I r condescending to amuse an insatiable pub- c — the .ong-continued neglect which is certain ) ensue, if works likely to procure durable elcbrily are attempted — are so many templa- ons which assail the literary adventurer on is path, and which, if not resisted by the he- )ic sense of duty of aThalaba, will infallibly ivrrt him from his appointed mission of picrc- ig the Idol of Error to the heart. These causes of danger to our standard lite- iturc become more pressing, when it is rccol- rcted that, by the fixed practice and apparently constitutional usage of this mixed aristocratic and commercial realm, no distinctions of rank are ever conferred upon literary ability, how distinguished soever. Sir Walter Scott, indeed^ and Sir Edward Bulwer have been made baro- nets; but. in the first instance, it was on the personal friend of George IV. that this honour was conferred, not tlie great novelist; in the second, to the literary parliamentary support- er, not the author of England and the English, that the reward was given. Both indeed were entirely worthy of the honour; but the honour would never have been bestowed on the Scotch novelist, if he had been unknown in the aris- tocratic circles of London, and never dined at Carlton House; or on the English, if he had been a stranger to the Whig coteries of the metropolis. The proof of this is decisive. Look at what we have done for our greatest men, who had not these adventitious aids to court favour. We made Burns an excise of- ficer and Adam Smith a commissioner of cus- toms. The influence of this circumstance is very great; and the want of any such national ho- nours is an additional cause of the fleeting and ephemeral character of our general literature. The soldier and the sailor are certain, if they distinguish themselves, of obtaining such re- wards. Look at the long list of knights com- manders of the Bath, in both services, who were promoted by the last brevet. Nothing can be more just than conferring such distinctions on these gallant men ; they compensate to them the inequalityof their fortunes, and stimulate them to heroic and daring exploits. The successful lawyer often comes in the end to take prece- dence of every peer in the realm, and becomes the founder of a family which transmits his wealth and his honours to remote generations. The honoured names of Hardwicke, Loughbo- rough, Mansfield, and Eldon, have been trans- mitted with princely fortunes to an ennobled posterity. But to literary abilities none of these higher and elevating objects of ambition are open. The great author can neither found a family nor acquire a title; and if he does not choos'e to degrade himself by falling in with the passions or frivolities of the age, it is more than probable that, like the Israelites of old, his life will be spent in wandering in the de- sert, and he will see only, in his last hour, and that from afar, the pnunised land. -Xnd yet what is the influence of the soldier, the lawyer, or the statesman, compared to that which a great and profound writer exercises 1 and what do the monarchs, the cabinets, and the generals of one age do, but carry into elVect the princi- ples enforced by the master-spirits of the pre- ceding? It is cvit a (jUarrior, tiic last a Michaol Angelo. Mr. Vox arranged the arts of composition »nus : — 1. Poetry ; 2. History; 3. Oratory. That very order indicated that the great orator had a just conception of the nature of history, and possessed m.iny of the (pialilifs n-quisiie lo excel in it, as he did in th<' flights of chifiuencc It is, IP. truth, in its higher departments, one of the line arts ; and it is the extraordinary difficulty of finding a person who combines the imagination and fervour rrquisite fur emi- nence in llieir aerial visions, with the industry I and research which arc indispensable for the I correct narrative of earthly events, which j renders great historians so very rare, even in i 'he most brilliant periods of human existence. I -Vntiquity only produced six; modern times I can hardly boast of eight. It is much easier to find a great epic than a great history ; thero were many poets in antiquity, but only one Tacitus. Homer himself is rather an annalist than a poet: it is his inimitable traits of na- ture which constitute his principal charm : the Iliad is a history in verse. Modern Italy can boast of a cluster of immortal poets and paint- ers ; but the country of Raphael and Tasso has not produced one really great history. The laboured annals of Guicciardini or Davila can- not bear the name; a work, the perusal of which was deemed worse than the fate of a galley-slave, cannot be admitted to take its place W'ith the master-pieces of Italian art.* Three historians only in Great Britain have by common consent taken their station in the highest rank of historic excellence. Sismondi alone, in France, has been assigned a place by the side of Gibbon, Hume, and Robertson. This extraordinary rarity of the highest excel- lence demonstrates the extraordinary difficulty of the art, and justifies Mr. Fox's assertion, that it ranks next to poetry in the fine arts; but it becomes the more extraordinary, when the immense number of works written on his- torical subjects is taken into consideration, and the prodigious piles of books of history which are to be met with in every public library. The greatest cause of this general failure of historical works to excite general attention, or acquire lasting fame, is the want of power of generalization and classification in the writers. Immersed in a boundless sea of de- tails, of the relative importance of which they were unable to form any just estimate, the au- thors of the vast majority of these works have faithfully chronicled the events which fell un- der their notice, but in so dry and uninterest- ing a manner that they produced no sort of impression on mankind. Except as books of antiquity or reference, they have long since been consigned to the vault of all the Ca- pulets. They were crushed under Ihcir own weight — they were drowned in the Hood of their own facts. While they were straining every nerve not to deceive their readers, the whole class of those readers quietly slipped over to the other side. They, their merits and their faults, were alike forgi/ttcn. It may safely be affirmed, that ninety-nine out of a hundred historical works are consigned lo oblivion from this cause. The quality, on the other hand, which dis- tinguishes all the histories wliich have aciiuired a great and lasting reputation among men, has been the very reverse of this. It consists in the power of throwing into the shade the sub- ordinate and comparatively immaterial farts, and bringing into a prcuninent light those only on which subsequent ages love to dwell, from the heroism of the actions recotinted, the tragic interest of the catastrophes jiortrayed, or the important consequences with which tlirv liave been attended on the futtiio generations of men. It was thus that Herodotus painted wilh ♦ It in rcporlpd in Iliity, that n Ballnv-»Invn wn« olIfc»- pft n rnmniiilalinn nf lili mTilfiKr, if hn wniitd r»(ld lliniiich (JiiirriiiriliniN War "f riormrf « llli IM«a. After laliiiiiriiie al it for nonic litiip. tin pflltionnl lo bo leal back to the oar — Si non i rcro t btni trdeato. i86 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS fo mucn force the memorable events of the Persian invasion of Greece; and Thucydides, the contest of aristocracy and democracy in the Greek commonwealths; and Liv}', the im- mortal strife of Hannibal andScipio in Roman story. No historian ever equalled Gibbon in this power of classification, and giving breadth of effect; for none ever had so vast and com- plicated a series of events to recount, and none ever portrayed them with so graphic and lu- minous a pen. Observe his great pictures : — the condition of the Roman empire in the time of Augustus — the capture of Constantinople by the Latin crusaders — the rise of Mohammed — the habiis and manners of the pastoral nations — the disasters of Julian — and the final decay and ruin of the Eternal City. They stand out from the canvas with all the freshness and animation of real life ; and seizing powerfully on the imagination of the reader, they make an indelible impression, and compensate or cause to be forgotten all the insignificant details of revolutions in the palace of Constanlinople, or in the decline of the Roman empire, which necessarily required to be introduced. Struck with the fate of so prodigious a host of historical writers, who had sunk into obli- vion from this cause, Voltaire, with his usual vigour and originality, struck out a new style in this department of literature. Discarding at once the whole meager details, the long de- scriptions of dress and ceremony, which filled the pages of the old chronicles or monkish annalists, he strove to bring history back to what he conceived, and with reason, Avas its true object — a striking delineation of the prin- cipal events which had occurred, with a picture of thechangcs of manners, ideas, and principles with which they were accompanied. This was a great improvement on the jejune narratives of former times ; and proportionally great was the success with which, in the first instance at least, it was attended. While the dry details of Guicciardini, the ponderous tomes of Yillarct or Mczeray, and the trustworthy quartos of De Thou, slumbered in respectable obscurity on the dusty shelves of the library, the "Siecle de Louis XIV'.," the Life of Peter the Great and Charles XII., were on every table, and almost in every boudoir; and their popular author was elevated to the pinnacle of worldly fame, while his more laborious and industrious predecessors v/ere nigh forgotten by a frivolous age. A host of imitators, as usual with ever}^ original writer, followed in this brilliant and lucrative path ; of whom, Raynal in France, Schiller in Germany, and Watson in England, were the most suc- cessful. But it was ere long discovered that this bril- liant and fkclchy style of history was neither satisfactory tti the scholar nor permanently popular with the public. It was amusing ra- ther than interesting, brilliant than profound. Its ingenious authors sprung too suddenly tf) conclusicms — they laid down positions which the experieiiCe of the next age proved to be er- roneous. It wanted that essential requisite in history, a knowledge of the human heart and a practical acquaintance with men. Above all, •t had none of the earnestness of thought, the impassioned expression, which springs from deep and sincere conviction, and which is ever found to be the only lasting passport to the hu- man heart. After thii first burst of popularity was over, it began to be discovered that these brilliant sketches were not real histoiy, an^ could never supply its place. They left an im- mense deal untold, of equal or greater import- ance than what was told. They gave an amusing, but deceptive, and therefore not per manently interesting, account of the periods they embraced. Men design something more in r-eading the narrative of great and important events in past times, than an able sketch of their leading features and brilliant characters, accompanied by perpetual sneers at priests, eulogies on kings, or sarcasms on mankind. This was more particularly the case when the political contests of the 18th century increased in vehemence, and men, warmed with the pas- sions of real life, turned back to the indifferenl coolness, the philosophic disdain, the to,i deri- soirc, with M'hich the most momentous or tragic events had been treated in these gifted but su- perficial writers. Madame de Stael has said, that when derision has become the prevailing characteristic of the public mind, it is all over with the generous aifections or elevated senti- ments. She was right, but not for ever — only till men are made to feel in their own, persons the sulTerings they laugh at in others. It is astonishing how soon that turns derision into sympathy. The " aristorrals densvircs" emerged from the prisons of Paris, on the fall of Robes- pierre, deeply affected with sympathy for hu- man wo. The profound emotions, the dreadful suffer- ings, the heart-stirring interest of that eventful era, speedily communicated themselves to the style of historical writers; it at once sent the whole tribe of philosophic and derisory histo- rians overboard. The sketchy style, the philo- sophic contempt, the calm indifference, the skeptical sneers of Voltaire and his followers, were felt as insupportable by those who had known what real suffering was. There early appeared in the narratives of the French Revo- lution, accordingly, in the works of Toulon- geon, Eerlrand de Molleville, the Deux Amis de la Liberte, and Lacretellc, a force of paint- ing, a pathos of narrative, a vehemence of lan- guage, which for centuries had been unknown in modern Europe. This style speedily became general, and communicated itself to history in all its branches. The passions on all sides were too strongly roused to permit of the calm nar- ratives of former philosophic -vn-iters being tolerated; men had suffered too much to allow them to speak or think with indifference of the sufferings of others. In painting with force and energy, it was soon found that recourse must be had to the original authorities, and, if possible, the ej'e-witnesses of the events; all subsequent or imaginary narrative appeared insipid and lifeless in comparison ; it was like studying the mannerist trees of Perelle or Vi\'ares after the vigorous sketches from na- ture of Salvator or Claude. Thence has arisen the great school of modern French his- tory, of which Sismondi was the founder; and which has since been enriched by the works of Guizot, Thierry, Barante, Thiers, Mignet MICHELE'fS FRA^•CE. 187 Michani, and Michelet: a cluster of writers, which, if none of them singly equal the nia>.tcr- picces of English history, present, taken as a ■\rhoIe, a greater mass of talent in that depart- ment than any other country can boast. The poetical mind and pictorial eye of Gib- bon had made him anticipate, in the very raidst of the philosophic school of Voltaire, Hume, and Robertson, this great change which mis- fortune and suflering impressed generally upon the next generation. Thence his extraordinary excellence and acknowledged superiority as a delineator of events to any writer who has pre- ceded or followed him. He united the philo- sophy and general views of one age to the brilliant pictures and impassioned story of another. He warmed with the narratives of the crusaders or the Saracens — he wandered with the Scythians — he wept with the Greeks — he delineated with a painter's hand, and a poet's fire, the manners of the nations, the fea- tures of the countries, the most striking events of the periods which were passed under review ; but at the same time he preserved inviolate the unity and general effect of his picture, — his lights and shadows maintained their just proportions, and were respectively cast on the proper objects. Philosophy threw a radiance over the mighty maze ; and the mind of the reader, after concluding his prodigious series of details, dwelt with complacency on its most striking periods, skilfully brought out by the consummate skill of the artist,as the recollection of a spectator does on any of the magic scenes in Switzerland, in which, amidst an infinity of beautit'ul objects, the eye is fascinated by the calm tranquillity of the lake, or the rosy hues of the evening glow on the glacier.- We speak of Gibbon as a delineator of events ; none can feel more strongh' or deplore more deeply the fatal blindness — the curse of his age — which rendered him so perverted on the subject of religion, and left so wide a chasm in his im- mortal work, which the profounder thought and wider experience of Guizot has done so much to fill. Considered as calm and philosophic narra- tives, the histories of Hume artd Robertson will remain as standard models for every fu- ture age. The just and profound reflections of the former, the inimitable clearness and im- partiality with which he has summoned up the arguments on both sides, on the most mo- mentous questifins which have nt'italfd Eng- land, as well as the general simplicity, uniform clearness and occasional pathos of his .slorj', mnst for ever command thr* admiration of mankind. In vain we are told that he is often inarrnra'i', •"ni''times partial ; in vain arc snrc'-^^iv aiiailis pul)li"-h''d on ddachiMl parts of his narrative, by party zpnl or nntiqunrinn research; his reputation in undiminished; successive editions issuing from the press attest the conlinn ' " "f his work; and it Continues its ma/ irsc through the sea of time, like a mighty thref-d»"rk'-r, which never even condescends lo notice the javelins dart'Ml at its sides from the hostile cnnors which from time to time seek to impede its proRrcss. Bolicrtson's merits arc of a diflcrent, and upon the whole, cf an inferior kind. Gifto well as men and mamiTS. It is surprising wha \ .iriet) aiicl interest this gives to hislorii- Mive; how strontrly it fixes places and p n the memory of the reader; and how much it aug- ments the interest of the storj-, by filling up and clothing in the mind's eye the scenes in in which it occurred. I)oul>iltoiil(li)if; rcalily into the cxprcffion of im(i!:;inatwn, that the greatest tri- umphs of art are attained; and he whc sepa- rates the one from the other will never rise to durable greatness in either. We are the more inclined to insist on this eternal truth, as we perceive in tlie present style of historical composition, both in this country and on the continent, unequivocal indications of a tendency to lose sight of the great end and aim of history, in the anxiety of attaining accu- raey in its materials. Again and again we a* scri, that such accuracy is the indispensable MICHELET'S FRANCE. 189 basis of history ; it 7nnst form its elements antl characterize all its parts. But it will not of itself form an historian; it is to histor)-, what the sketches from nature in the Liber I'crilalis are to the inimitable Claudes of the Doria Pa- lace at Rome, or the National Gallery in Lon- don. AVriters in this age have been so forcibly struck with the necessit)' of accuracy in their facts, and original drawing in their pictures, that they have gone into the opposite extreme ; and the danger now is, not so much that they will substitute imagination for reality, or neglect original drawing in their pictures, as that, in their anxiety to preserve the fidelity of the sketches from which their pictures are taken, they will neglect the principles of their composition, and the great ends, moral, poli- tical, and religious, of their art. This tendency is more particularly conspi- cuous in the continental authors; but it is also very visible in several justly esteemed histo- rical writers of our own country. If you take up any of the volumes of Thierry, Barante, Michaux, Sismondi, or Michelet, you will find the greater part of their pages filled with quo- tations from the old chronicles and contempo- rary annalists. In their anxiety to preserve accuracy of statement and fidelity in narrative, they have deemed it indispensable to give, on almost all occasions, the very words of their original authorities. This is a very great mis- take, — and indeed so great a one, that if perse- vered in, it will speedily terminate that school of historical composition. It is impossible to make an harmonious whole, by a selection of passages out of a vast mass of original writers of vari- ous styles and degrees of merit, and running perhaps over a course of centuries. It would be just as likelj' that you could make a perfect picture, by dovetailing together bits of mosaic, dug up from the ruins of ancient Rome; or an impressive temple, by piling on the top of each other, the columns, entablatures, and archi- traves of successive structures, raised during a course of many centuries. Every composi- tion in the fine arts, to produce a powerful im- pression, and attain a lasting success, must have that unity of cTprcssion, which, ecjually as in poetrj' and the drama, is indispensable to the production of emotion or delight in the mind of the person to whom it is addressed ; anci unity of expression is to be attaim-d equal- ly in ten thousand pages and by recording ten thousand facts, as in an epic of Milton, a pic- ture of Claude's, or a drama of Sophocles. Sharon Turner, Lingard, Tytler, an' as one of the fine arts; they have not studied unity of elTect, or harmony of composition ; they have forgot the place assigned it by Fox,- next to poetry in the arts of composition. In the search of accuracy, they have sometimes in jured effect; in the desire to give original words, they have often lost originality of thought'. Their pages are invaluable to the annalist — and as books of reference or of value to scho- lars they will always maintain a high place in our literature; but they will not render hope- less, like Liv)-, Tacitus, or Gibbon, future his- tories on the subjects they have treated. From the facts they have brought to light, a future historian will be able to give a correct detail of British story, which, if clothed in the garb of imagination, may attain durable celebrity, and may possibly come in the end to rival the simpler but less truthful narrative of Hume, in popularity and interest. Colonel Napier's descriptions of battles and the heart-stirring events of military warfare are superior to any thing in the same style, not only in modern but almost in ancient history. His account of the battles of Albuera and Sala- manca, of the sieges of Badajos and St. Sebas tian, of the actions in the Pyrenees, and the struggle of Toulouse, possess a heart-stirring interest, a force and energy of drawing, which could have been attained only by the eye of genius animated by the reminiscences of reali- ty. But the great defect of his brilliant work is the want of calmness in the judgment of political events, and undue crowding in the de- tails of his work. He is far too minute in the account of inconsiderable transactions. He throws the light too equally upon all the figures in his canvas; the same fault which charac- terizes the home scenes of Wilkie, and will render them, with equal, perhaps superior, ge- nius, inferior in lasting effect to the paintings of Teniers or Gerard Dow. So prodigious is the accumulation of detached facts which he describes, that the most enthusiastic admirer of military narrative is speedily satiated, and ordinary readers find their minds so confused by the events passed under review, that, with the exception of a few brilliant actions and sieges, they often close the work without any distinct idea of the events which it has so ad mirably recorded. This defect is equally conspicuous in the- pages of M. Michelet. That he is a mnn not merely of extensive and varied reading, but fine genius and original thought, is at once ap- parent. He stales in his preface, and the pe- rusal of his work amply justilics the asser- tion, "that the most rigid criticism must con- cede to him the merit of having drawn his narrative entirely from original sources." Hut it were to be wished, that amidst iliis .iniious care for the collection of niainveying a distinct impression to the reader's mind of the great .-eras and changes which the va 190 ALISOiN'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. ned story of his subject presents. Want of attention to this has well nij^h rendered all the rest of no avail. To the learned reader, who is previously familiar with the principal events he describes, his narrative may convey something like a definite idea of the thread of events : but hov/ many are they compared to the great mass of readers 1 Perhaps one in a hundred in France — one in five hundred in all oihcr countries. The great bulk of readers may shut his last volume after the most careful perusal, without retaining any distinct recol- lection of the course of French History, or any remembrance at all of any thing but a few highly wrought up and interesting pas- sages. This is the great defect of the work, arising from want of attention to the due pro- portion of objects, and not throwing subordi- nate objects sufficiently into the shade. The same grievous mistake is conspicuous in Mackintosh, Lingard, and Turner's Histories of England. It is the great danger of the new or graphic school of history; and unless care be taken to guard against it, the whole produc- tions of that school will be consigned by future ages to oblivion. We cannot admit that the magnitude or in- tricacy of a subject affords any excuse what- ever for this defect. Livy did not fall into it in recording seven centuries of Roman vic- tories ; Gibbon did not fall into it in spanning the dark gulf which separates ancient from modern times. Claude produced one uniform impression, out of an infinity of details, — in some of his pieces, solitary and rural — in others crowded with harbours, shipping, and figures. Caspar Poussin finished with scru- pulous accuracy every leaf in his forest scenes; but he managed the light and the shade with such exquisite skill, that the charm of general effect is produced on the spectator's mind. Virgil produces one uniform impres- sion from the homely details of his Georgics equally as the complicated events of the jEneid. Amidst an infinitj-- of details and episodes, Tasso has with consummate skill preserved unity of emotion in his Jerusalem Delivered : Milton has not lost it even in re- cording the events of heaven and earth. Look at Nature : — every leaf, every pebble, every cliff, every blade of grass, in the most exten- sive scene, is finished with that perfection that characterizes all her works: yet what majesty and generality of effect in the mighty whole! That is the model of historical composition : every object should be worked out; nothing omitted ; nothing carelessly touched : but a bright light should be thrown only on the bril- liant events, the momentous changes ; whole generations and centuries of monotonous even's cast into the shade, that is, slightly and rapidly passed over; and the most sedulous care taken to classify events into periods, in such a way as to fiirin so many cells as it were in the memory of the reader, wherein to deposit the store of information aflbrded in regard to each. There is, in truth, only one really great style in history, as there is in poetry, painting, or music. Superficial observers speak of a new school of history, or a new mode of treating human affairs, as they would of a new plan or a new opera: they might as well speak of a new style in sculjiture or painting, in mathe« matics or astronomy, in epic or dramatic poetr}'. We should like to see any one who would improve on the style of Phidias and Raphael, of Homer and Virgil, of Tasso and Milton, of Sophocles or Racine. In inferior styles, indeed, there is a veiy great variety in this, as there is in all the other Fine Arts ; but in the highest walks there is but one. The principles of the whole are the same ; and those principles are to produce goieraliiy of effect out of specially of objects ; to unite fidelity of drawing with brilliancy of imagination. Observe with what exquisite skill Tasso works this uniform impression out of the varied events of his "Jerusalem Delivered;" therein lies his vast superiority to the endless adven- tures of the more brilliant and imaginative Ariosto. The principles which regulated the compositions of the " Prometheus Vinctus" of ^schylus and the " Hamlet" of Shakspeare are the same: the Odes of Pindar are the counterparts of those of Gray: the sculpture of Phidias and the painting of Raphael are nothing but the same mind working with dif- ferent materials. The composition of Gibbon is directed by exactly the same principles as the sunsets of Claude: the battle-pieces of Napier and the banditti of Salvator are fac- similes of each other: the episodes of Livy and the "Good Shepherds" of Murillo produce the same emotions in the breast. Superficial readers M'ill deride these observations, and ask what has painting external objects to do with the narration of human events? We would recommend them to spend twenty years in the study of either, and they will be at no loss to discover in what their analogy consists. On this account we cannot admit that history is necessaril}^ drier or less interesting than poetry or romance. True, it must give a faith- ful record of events: true, unless it does so it loses its peculiar and highest usefulness ; but' are we to be told that reality is less attractive than fiction ] Arc feigned distresses less poig- nant than real ones — imaginary virtues less ennobling than actual ? The advantage of fic- tion consists in the narrower compass which it em- lirarci^, and consequently the superior interest which it can communicate by working up the characters, events, and scenes. That, doubt- less, is a great advantage ; but is it beyond the reach of history ? May not the leading cha- racters and events there be delineated with the same force, brilliancy, and fidelity to nature? Has it not the additional source of interest arising from the events being real? — an inte- rest which all who tell stories to children will see exemplified in their constant question, "Is it true'f" None can see more sj'ongly than we do, that the highest aim and first duty of history is not to amuse, but to instruct the world : and that mere amusement or interest are of very secondary importance. But is amusement irreconcilable with instiiiction— interest with elevation ? Is not truth best con- veyed when it is clothed in an attractive garb? Is not the greatest danger which it runs that of being superseded by attractive fiction ? HoW MICHELETS FKA.XCE. mi many readers are familiar with Enijlish historj' llirou;ili yhalcspeare aiul Scott, rather ihaii Hume and Linfjardl That illustrates the risk ol" leaving Iriilh to its unadorned resources. Was it not in parables that Supreme Wis- dom communicated itself to mankind ? The wise man will never disdain the aid even of imagination and fancy, in communicating in- struction. Recollect the words of Napoleon — •• Ost rimagination qui domine Ic monde." We have been insensibly led into these ob- sen'alions by observing in what manner Sis- mondi, Thierry, Barantc, Michelet, and indeed all the writers of the antiquarian and graphic school, have treated the history of France. They are all men of powerful talent, brilliant imagination, unbounded research, and philo- sophic minds : their histories arc so superior to any which preceded them, that, in reading them, we appear to be entering upon a new and hitherto unknown world. But it is in the very richness of their materials — the extent of their learning — the vast stores of original ideas and authorit}- they have brought to bear on the annals of the monarchy of Clovis — that we discern the principal defect of their compo- sitions. They have been well nigh over- whelmed by the treasures which themselves have dug up. So vast is the mass of original documents which they have consulted — of de- iails and facts which they have brought to light — that they have too often lost sight of the first rule in the art of history — unity of com- position. They have forgotten the necessity of a distinct separation of events in such a manner as to impress the general course of lime upon the mind of their readers. They are accurate, graphic, minute in details ; but the " tout ensemble" is too often forgotten, and the Temple of History made up rather of a chaos of old marbles dug up from the earth, and piled on each other without either order or symmetry, than of the majestic proportions and colossal masses of the Pantheon or St. Peter's. The annals of no country are more distinctly separated into periods than those of France; in none has the course of events more clearly pointed out certain resting phices, at which the historian may pause to show the progress of civilization and the growth of the nation. The first origin of the Gauls, and their social organization, before the con(}uest of the Ko- mans — their institutions under those mighty conquerors, and the vast impress which their [wisdom and experience, not less than their ! oppression and dcsprttism, r.ommuniraterj to I their character and habits — the causes which Ittl to the decay of the empire of the C:esars, [and let in the barbarians as deliverers rather than enemies into its vast provinces — the es- tablishment of the monarchy of Clovis by these ruile conquerors, and its gradual extension from the Rhine to the Pyrenees — the decay of the Merovingian dynasty, and the prostration of government under the " Jloit Fnintitni" — the rise of the "Maires de Palais." and their final establishment on the throne by the eenitis of Charlemagne — the rapid fall of lii and \\m origin of the Ilourbon • .- i temporary with the Plantagcncts of England — the crusades, with their vast efTecls, moral social, and political, on the people and instl tutions of the country, and the balance of power among the dillerent classes of society — the expulsion of the English by the ability of Philip Augustus, and the restoration of on* monarchy over the whole of JVance — the frightful atrocities of the religious war against the Albigeois — the dreadful wars with England, which lasted one hundred and twenty years, from Edward HI. to Henry V., with their im- mediate effect, analogous to that of the Wars of the Roses on this side of the Channel, ia destroying the feudal powers of the nobility — the consequent augmentation of the power of the crown by the standing anny of Charles Vn. — the indefatigable activity and slate policy of Louis XI. — the brilliant but ephe- meral conquests of Italy by the rise and pro- gress of Charles IX. — the rivalry of Francis I. and Charles V. — the religious wars, with their desolating present effects, and lasting ultimate consequences — the deep and Machiavelian policy of Cardinal Richelieu, and its entire suc- cess in concentrating the whole influence and power of government in Paris — the brilliant aera of Louis XIV., with its Augustan halo, early conquests, and ultimate disasters — the corrup- tions of the Regent Orleans and Louis XV. — the virtues, difficulties, and martyrdom of Louis XVI. — the commencement of the ocra of Revo- lutions, ending in the fanaticism of Robes- pierre and the carnage of the Empire — form a series of events and periods, spanning over the long course of eighteen centuries, and bringing down the annals of mankind from the Druids of Gaul and woods of Germany, to the intellect of La Place and the glories of Na poleon. To exhibit such a picture to the mind's eye in its just colours, due proportions, and real light — to trace so long a history fraught with such changes, glories, and disasters — to unfold, through so vast a progress, the unceasing de- velopment of the human mind, and simulta- neously with it the constant punishment tpd. The ^ of the line, wh'<'rnl ' 'i (.imriU "•■ ■ ■ ,, _ Srr til •r. :.< r ilir Ucv . . . tt fnrma "' IV. on tho French Kcvoltitinn In that nil« "but the constant sense of religion which has actuated its members. In numbers the Spa- niards excel us — in military ardour, the Gauls — in hardihood and obstinacy, the Germans but in veneration to the gods, and fidelity to their oaths, the Roman people excee'^. any nation that ever existed." We shall see whether the present times are destined to form an exception from these principles ; whether treason and infidelity are to rear the fabric in modern, which fidelity and religion construct- ed in ancient times. The extreme peril of such principles renders the inquiry interesting. — What have been the effects of military treachery in times past? Has it aided the cause of virtue, strengthened the principles of freedom, contributed to the prosperity of mankind] Or has it unhinged the fabric of society, blasted the cause of libert}'^, blighted the happiness of the people? The first great instance of military treachery in recent times, occurred in the revolt of the French Guards, in June, 1789. That un- paralleled event immediatel}^ brought on the Revolution. The fatal example rapidly spread to the other troops brought up to overawe the capital, and the king, deprived of the support of his own troops, was soon compelled to sub- mit to the insurgents. It was these soldiers, not the mob of Paris, who stormed the Bastile; all the efforts of the populace were unavailing till those regular troops occupied the adjoining houses, and supported tumultuary enthusiasm by military skill. Extravagant were the eulogiums, boundless the gratitude, great the rewards, which were shoM'ered down on the Gardes Frangaiscs for this shameful act of treachery. Never were ■ men the subjects of such extraordinar)'^ adu- lation. Wine and women, gambling and in- toxication, flattery and bribes, v.-ere furnished in abundance. And what was the conse- quence ? The ancient honour of the Guards of France, of those guards who saved the Body Guards at Fontenoy, and inherited a line of centuries of splendour, perished without redemption on that fatal occasion. Tarnished in reputation, disunited in opinion, humbled in character, the regiment fell to pieces from a sense of its own shame; the early leader of the Revolution, its exploits never wers heard of through all the career of glory which fol- lowed ; and the first act of revolt against their sovereign was the last act of their long and renowned existence. Nor were the conseq\iences of this unexam- pled defection less dangerous to France than to the soldiers who were guilty of it. The insu- bordination, license, and extravagance of revolt were fatal to military discipline, and brought France to the brink of ruin. The disaflTccted soldiers, as has been observed in all ages, were intrepid only against their own sove- reign. When they were brought to meet the armies of Prussia and Austria, they all took to flight; and on one occasion, by the admis* sion of Dumourier himself, ten thousand regu- lar soldiers fled from one thousand five hun- dred Prussian hussars. A little more energy MILITARY TREASON AND CIVIC SOLDIERS. 107 and ability in the allied commanders would have then destroyed the revolutionary govern- ment. Notwithstanding all the enthusiasm of the people, the weakness of insubordination con- tinued to paralyze all the efforts of the re- publican armies. France was again invaded, and brought to the brink of rain in 179.3, and the tide was then, for the first time, turned, when the iron rule of the mob began, and the terrific grasp of Carnot and Robespierre ex- tinguished all those principles of military license which had so much been the subject of eulogium at the commencement of the Revolution. Did this abandonment of military duty serve Ihe cause of freedom, or increase the prosperi- ty of France 1 Did it establish liberty on a secure basis, or call down the blessings of posterity? It led immediately to all the an- guish and suffering of the Revolution — the murder of the king — the anarchy of the king- dom — the reign of terror — the despotism of Napoleon. They forgot their loyalty amidst the glitter of prostitution and the fumes of in- toxication ; their successors were brought back to it by the iron rule of the Committee of Pub- lic Safety: they revolted against the beneficent sway of a reforming monarch : they brought on their country a tyranny, which the pencil of Tacitus would hardly be able to portray. The revolt of the Spanish troops at the Isle of Leon, in 1819, was the next great example of military defection. What have been its consequences] Has Spain improved in free- dom — risen in character — augmented in wealth, since that glorious insurrection 1 It raised up, for a few years, the phantom of a constitu- tional throne, ephemeral as the dynasties of the east, pestilent as the breath of contagion. Spain was rapidly subjugated when it rested on such defenders — treason blasted their ef- forts, and the nation, which had gloriously re- sisted for six years the formidable legions of Napoleon, sunk under the first attack of an inexperienced army of invaders led byaBour- ' prince. Since that time, to what a deplor- condition has Spain been reduced! De- ed by domestic tyranny, destitute of ign influence — the ridicule and scorn of lEurope — this once great power has almost 'been blotted from the book of nations. I Portugal, Naples, and Piedmont, all h.-id ;ary rcvolutiiMis about the same ' ■ ': they improved tiic charaT''^ts of the many must prevail whep- ill' r v.K'- is hrard. The only thing to be feared lor them is from their own passions. The only danger to liberty in such circum- ■tanccs is from its own defenders ; the violence to be appr' ' ' ' is not that of the throne, but of «b<- IVo • this ran be imagin«'d than h 1 by th<* r<'rrnt p-voIu- tion in France and Uelgium. The revolt of ih«' soldier at once established the rule of th.-? mob in these countries, and put nn end. for a long limf .It IfasI, t<> ' M. What STiiniy is Ihfi i ly. life, or iharariorl Conlessrdly none; everything is dcterminfd by the bayonet «)f the National Guard and army ; neither Ihc throne nor the Tipoplp can wilhvtan"! ihem. Freedom was as iitle ronfirined by ibeir revolt, as at Constnn- inople by an insurrection of the Janizaries. liiberty in France was cmUtn^trrd for the mr^- ment by the ordinances of the Bourbons: it has been dc^iroyi,! by the insurrection plannea to overthrow them. Freedom, supported as it then was, by an energetic and democratic press, and a republican population, ran no risk of per- manent injury from the intrigues of the court A priest-ridden monarch, guided by imbecile ministers, could never have subjugated an ardent, high-spirited, aad democratic people. But the danger is very different from the en- ergy of the republicans, and the ambition of the soldiers. Marshal Soult and his bayonets are not so easily dealt with as Prince i^olignac and his Jesuits. The feeble monarchy of Louis XVI. was overturned with ease ; the terrible Committee of Public Safety, the des- potic Directory, the energetic sway of Napo- leon, ruled the Revolution, and crushed free- dom, even in its wildest fits. Three days' insurrection destroyed the feeble government of Charles. A revolt ten times more formi- dable was crushed with ease by the military power of the Convention. Had the soldiers nol revolted in July, what would have been the consequence 1 The in- surrection in Paris, crushed by a garrison of twelve thousand men, would have speedily sunk. A new Chamber, convoked on the basis of the royal ordinance, would have thrown the ministers into a minority in the , Chamber of Deputies, and by them the obnox- ious measure would have been repealed. If there is any truth in the growing influence of public opinion, so uniformly maintained by liberal writers, this must hav^e been the result. No representatives chosen by any electors in France, could have withstood the odium which supporting the measures of the court- would have produced. Thus liberty would have been secured without exciting the tempest which threatens its own overthrow. Public credit, private confidence, general prosperity, would have been maintained; the peace of the world preserved ; the habits conducive to a state of national freedom engendered. What have been the consequences of the boasted treachery of the troops of the line in July ! The excitation of revolutionary hopes ; the rousing of democratic ambition ; a ferment in society ; the abandonment of useful indus- try; the government of the mob; the arming of France; the suspension of pacific enterprise. A general war must in the end ensue iVoin its clfects. Europe will be drenched wiili i>lood, and whatever be the result, it will bi' equally fatal to the cause of freedom. If the aristo- cracy prevail, it will be the government of the sword ; if the populaee, of the guillotine. A civil war in France wou'd have been far more serviceable to the ciiii;c of real liberty than the sudden destruction of the government by the revolt of the army. In many periods of history, freedom has emerged from the col- lition of (lideieiit classes in society, in none from militarv iusubordinaiion. If Charles I. had possessed a resular armjr. and it had betrayed its trust on the fust break- ing out of the great Rebellion. wouM the resull I have been as favouraM-- to the cause of liberty, as the long contest which ensued ? Nolhine 800 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. can be clearer than that it would not. No greater consequences -would have followed such a revolt, than any of the insurrections of the barons af^ainst the princes of York and Lancaster. A revolution so easily achieved, would as easily have been abandoned: liberty ■would never have been gained, because the trials had not been endured by which it is to be won. The only security lor its continu- ance is to be found in the energy and courage of the citizens : it is not by witnessing the de- struction of government by a mutinous soldiery that these habits are to be acquired. Soldiers, therefore, who adhere to their ho- nour and their oaths, are in reality the best friends of the cause of freedom. They pre- vent the struggle for its maintenance from being converted into a mortal combat, in which the victory of either party must prove fatal to the very object for which they are contending. They prevent the love of independence from being transformed into the spirit of insubordi- nation, and the efforts of freedom blasted by the violf.nce of popular, or the irresistible weight of military ambition. They turn the spirit of liberty into a pacific channel; and averting it from that direction Avhere it falls under the rule of violence, retain it in that where wisdom and foresight duly regulate its movements. The institution of a. Nittio7ial Gi'.ard, of which so much is now said, is not less the subject of delusion, than the boasted treachery of- regu- lar soldiers. Citizen soldiers are most valuable additions to the force of a regular army, and when actu- ated by a common and patriotic feeling, they are capable of rendering most effective service to the stat( . The landwchr of Prussia, and the vo- lunteers of Russia, sufficiently demonstrated that truth during the campaigns of 1812 and 1813. They are a valuable force also for preserv- ing domestic tranquillity vp to a certain point, when little real peril is to be encountered, and a display of moral opinion is of more weight than the exertion of military prowess. But they are a force that cannot be relied on dur- ing the shades of opinion which take place in a revolution, and still less in the perilous strife which follows the actual collision of one class of the state with another. This has been completely demonstrated during both theFrench Revolutions. The National Guard of Paris was first em- bodied on the 2()th July, 1789, a week after the capture of the Bastile. During the first fer- vour of the revolutionary ardour, and before the strife of faction had brought the opposite parties into actual contest, they frequently ren- dered efTcctive service to the cause of order. On more than one occasion, headed by Lafa- yette, they dispersed seditious assemblages, and once, in June, 1792, were brought to fire upon the .Jacobins in the Champ de Mars. But v,'hcnevcr matters approached a crisis, when the want and suflcring consequent on a revo- lution had brought forward angry bodies of workmen from the Fauxbourg; when the queslKin was not one of turning out to parade, but of li^hling an exasperated multitude, they luiiformly failed. The citizen soldiers, headod by Lafayette i were under arms in great force on the 5th Oo I tober, 1789, when a furious rabble marched ; to Versailles, broke into and plundered the palace, attempted to murder the queen, and brought the Royal Family in captivity to Paris, preceded by the heads of their faithful Body Guards. They refused for five hours to listen to the entreaties of their commander to march to protect the palace of the king against that atrocious insult; and when they did go, were too irresolute to prevent the violence which followed. They stood by on 20th June, 1792, when a vociferous rabble broke into the hall of the Assembly, threatening the obnoxious deputies ^ with instant death; when they rushed into the , Palace of the Tuileries, pushed their pikes at j the breast of Louis, placed the Cap of Liberty , on his head, and brought the Royal Family and ( the monarchy into imminent danger. They assembled at the sound of the generalc, when the Faux.bourgs rose in revolt on the > 10th August, and their dense battalions, plen- | tifully supported by cavalry and artillery, ac- cumulated in great force round the Tuileries. , But division, irresolution, and timidity, para- , lyzed their ranks. First the Gendarmerie de- serted to the assailants ; then the cannoneers unloaded their guns ; several battalions next joined the insurgents, and the few that re- mained faitlif'ul were so completely paralyzed ! by the general defection of their comrades, . that they were unable to render any effective : support to the Swiss Guard. From amidst a forest of citizen bayonets, the monarch was ; dragged a captive to the Temple, and the go- . vernment of France yielded up to a sanguinary , rabble. Seven thousand National Guards, on that day, yielded up their sovereign to a despi- cable rabble ; as many hundred faithful regulai soldiers in addition to the heroic Swiss Guard would have established his throne and pre- vented the Reign of Terror. \\nien Lafayette, indignant at the atrocities of the Jacobins, repaired to Paris from the army, and assigned a rendezvous at his house, in the evening of June 27, 1792, to the Na- tional Guard, of which he had so lately been the popular commander, in order to march against the Jacobin club, only thirty men obeyed the summons. The immense majority evinced a fatal apathy, and surrendered uf their country, without a struggle, to the empire of tiie Jacobins. When Louis, Marie Antoinette, and the Princess Elisabeth, were successively led out to the scaflbld ; when the brave and virtuous Madame R(dand became the victim of the free- dom she had worshipped; when A'^ergniaud and the illustrious leaders of the Gironde were brought to the block; when Danlon and Camille Desmoulins were destroyed by the mob whom they excited, the National Guard lined the streets and attended the cars to the guillotine. When the executions rose to a hundred daily; when the shopkeepers closed their win- dows, to avoid witnessing the dismal spectacles of the long procession which was approaching the scallold ; when a ditch was dug to convey the MILITARY TREASON AND CIVIC SOLDIERS. 201 blood of the victims to the Seine ; when France groaned under tyranny, unequalled since the bejrinnins: of the vorUI, lorly thousand National Guards, with arms in their hands, looked on in silent obsen-ation of the mournful spectacle. When indijrnant nature revolted at the cruelty; when, by a generous union, the members of all sides of (he Assembly united, the power of the tyrants was shaken ; when Robespierre was de- clared hors la hi, and the pciieralc was beat to summon the citizen soldiers to make a last effort in behalf, not only of their country, but of theirown existence, only three thousand obeyed llie summons ! Thirty-seven thousand declined to come forward in the contest for their lives, their families, and every thing that was dear to them. With this contemptible force was Robes- pierre besieged in the Hotel de Yille ; and but tor the fortunate and unforeseen defection of the cannoneers of the Fauxbourgs in the Place de Greve, the tyrants would have been success- ful, the Assemblj' destroyed, and the reign of the euillotine perpetuated on the earth. When the reaction in favour of the victors, on the 9th Thermidnr, had roused the Parisian population against the sanguinary rule of the Convention; when, encouraged by the contempt- ible force at the disposal of government, forty thousand of the National Guard assaulted five thousand regular soldiers, in position at the Tuileries, on Oct. 31, 1795, Napoleon showed what reliance could be placed on the citizen soldiers. With a few discharges of artillery he checked the advance of the leading battalions, spread terror through their dense columns, and a revolt, which was expected to overthrow the tyranny of the delegates of the people, ter- minated by the establishment of military des- potism. When Augereau, on 4th Sept., 1797, at the command of the Director}-, seized sixty of the popular leaders of the legislature ; when the law of the sword began, and all the liberties of the Revolution were about to be sacrificed at the altar of military violence, the National Guard declined to move, and saw their fellow- citizens, the warmest supporters of their liber- ties, carried into captivity and exile, without attcmpiinfl; a movement in their behalf. ' When Napoleon overthrew the government in ISOO; when, like another Cromwell, he Kcind ill' "Miits of another IJevolulion ; when he m.iiri,. I his grenadiers into the counril of I Five Hundred, and made the stem rule of the sword succeed to the visions of enthusiastic Ifrccdom, the National Guanl n-mained quiet rs of the dfstrurtion of tli . and testified the same •^ tho rei:.'n of military, which they had done lo that nf 'I'-ni 'cratic violence. Th" .\ 'innal Guard was rc-oreanizcd in |Au7ii r, 1h:!(), and ih'-irr. ' • Ihas 1,1 .fi thr Kilbjert of 1, from all th'' 1:1 -ral journals ol K.nropr. Jhe throne wav c.stablisnrd by their bayonets; the Citizen King has thrown himself upon their support ; they were established in great force m every quarter of Paris, and the public Iran- Quillitv intrusted to tlii-ir hamls. History has a riirht to inqtiire what thry have dnuf to justify the high praises of their supporters, and how far the cause of order and rational libertv has gained by their exertions. They had the history of the former Revolc tion clearly before their eyes ; they knew well, by dear-bought experience, that when popular violence is once loused, it overthrows all the bulwarks both of order and freedom ; they were supported by all the weight of covcni- ment: they had ever)' thing at stake, in keep- ing down the ferment of the people. With so, many motives to vigorous action, what have they done 1 They permitted an unruly mob of thirty thousand persons to assemble round the I'alace of Louis Philippe, on October 25, 1830, and so completely shatter his infant authority, that he was obliged to dismiss the able and philosophic Guizot, the greatest historian of France, and the whole cabinet of the Dodrinnires, from his councils, to make wa}' for republican leaders of sterner mould, and better adapted to the in- creasing violence of the popular mind. At the trial of Polignac, the whole National Guard of Paris and the departments in the neighbourhood, seventy thousand strong, was assembled in the capital ; and what was the proof which the government gave of confidence in their loyalty and etnciency in the cause of order 1 Albeit encamped, as Lafayette said, at the Luxembourg, amidst twenty thousand Na- tional Guards, four tiiousand troops of the line, three thousand cavalry, ai.d forty pieces of ar- tillery, the government did vot venture to with- draw the state prisoners to Vincennes in day- light ; and, but for the stratagem of Montalivet, in getting them secretly conveyed away in the middle of the night, in his own caleche, from the midst of that vast encampment of citizen soldiers, they would have been murdered in the street, within sight of that verj' supreme tribunal which had pronounced that sentence, and saved their lives. At that critical moment, the cannoneers of the National Guard, placed with their pieces at the Louvre, declared, that, if inatti-rs rame to extremities, they would have turned their can- non a'^niiixt the government. (Jrent ]>art of the infantry, it was found, could not be relied on. The agitation occasioned by these events produced another change in the ministry, but no additional sectirily to the throne. In February last, the National (Jiiard joined the populace in pillaging the palace of the Archbishop of Paris; and joining in the in- fernal cry against every species of religion, scaled everi' steeple in Paris, with saerilrgions down the cross from their siimmiis, lecd their uniforms by e(l;inng the linage of our Saviour in all the churches in the metropolis. The apathy and irresoliilion of the National (Jiiard in repressing the disor- ' r of the populace on this oce ■ ''-h to call for a reproof even !>. r f the labourinir rlav--'-'-, il"' ^n of commercial enterprisi-, ih*' want ft r.'nfi- dence. and the disgraceful tumults which in cessantly agitate the public mind, and have 209 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS EeiSA^S. prevented the resumption of any industrial occupation. All this takes place in tlic midst, and under the eye of fifty thousand National Guards, in the city alone. History will record that the National Guard of France was instituted in 1789, for the con- solidation of free institutions, and the preserva- tion of public tranquillity. Tiiat since its establishment, the government and prevailing institutions have been the sub- ject of incessant change; that they have had in turn a constitutional monarchy, a fierce de- mocracy, a sceptre of blood, a militar)' consti- tution, a despotic consulate, an imperial throne, a regulated monarchy, and a citizen king. That during their guardianship, a greater number of lives have perished in civil war — a greater number of murders taken place on the scaffold — a greater extent of confiscation of fortune been inflicted — a greater quantity of wealth destroyed — a greater degree of vio- lence exerted by the people — a greater sum of anguish endured — than in an equal extent of time and population, in any age or country, since the beginning of the Atorld ! That it has almost invariably failed at the de- cisive m(.ment; that, instituted for the defence of property, it has connived at unheard-of spo- liation ; appointed for the preservation of order, its existence has been chiefly signalized by misrule; charged with the defence of life, it has permitted blood to flow in ceaseless tor- rents. Nothing therefore can be more unfounded in fact, than the applause so generally bestowed on this popular institution, considered as the sole or principal support of government. — It has been of value only as an auxiliary to the regular force ; it is utterly unserviceable in the crisis of civil warfare ; and is then only of real utility when some common patriotic feeling has sunk all minor shades of opinion in one general emotion. It- is impossible it ever should be otherwise — citizen soldiers are extremely serviceable when they are subjected to the bonds of dis- cipline, and obedient to the orders of the supreme power. But when they take upon themselves to discuss the measures or form V)f government, and instead of obeying orders to canvass principles, there is an end not only of all eflSciency in their force, but of all utility in their institution. Fifty thousand legislators, with bayonets in their hands, form a hopeless National Assembly. This is the circumstance which, in every decisive crisis between the opposing parties, paralyzed the National Guard of Paris, and to the end of lime will paralyze all volunteer troops in similar extremities: They shared in the opinions of their fellow-citizens ; they were members of clubs, as well as the unarmed multitude; they were as ready to fight with each other, as with the supporters of anarchy. The batta.iotis drawn from the Fauxhourg 8t. Germains or the quarters of the Palais Royal, and the Chaussee d'Antin, were disposed to support the monarchy ; but those from the Fauxhourg St. Antoine and St. Marceau, were as determined to aid the cause of democracy; and ir thio divided stale, the battalions of a democratic cast, from their stlperior numbcni acquired a fatal ascendency. The case would be the same in London if i similar crisis should arrive. The battalion; from the Regent Park, Regent Street, Picca- dilly, the West End, and all the opuleni quarters, might be relied on to support th« cause of order; but what could be expected from those raised in Wapping, Deptford, St Giles, Spitalfields, or all the innumerable lane; and alleys of the city, and its eastern suburbs 1 If the National Guard of London were an hundred thousand strong, at least twenty thou- sand of them would, from their habits, incli- nations, and connections, side, on the first real crisis, with the democratic party. j It is a fatal delusion to suppose that at- all' events, and in all circumstances, the National Guard would be inclined to support the cause of order, and prevent the depredation from which they would be first to suffer : — They un- questionably would be inclined to do so up tc a certain point of danger, and as long as they believed that the ruling power in the state was likely to prove victorious. But no sooner does the danger become more urgent, no soonei' does the government run the risk of defeat than the National Guard is paralyzed, from the' very circumstance of its being in ■-->■■* pan composed of men of properly. 'I t ca- pitalist is the most timid animal m cxi^jtence: next comes the great shopkeeper, lastly the' little tradesman. Their resolution is inversely as their wealth. In all ages, desperate daring' valour has been found in the greatest degree' amongst the lowest class of society. The multiplied enjoyments of life render men un- willing to incur the risk of losing them. No sooner, therefore, does the democratic party appear likely to become victorious, than the shopkeepers of the National Guard begin to think only of extricating their private affairs from the general ruin. Savve qui pcf.t is then, if not the general cry, at least the general feel- ing. The merchant sees before him a dismal vista of sacked warehouses and burnt stores; the manufacturer, of insurgent workmen and suspended orders; the tradesman, of pillaged shops and ruined custom. Despairing of the commonwealth, ihey recur, as all men do in evident peril, to the imerring instinct of self- preservation ; and from the magnitude of their stake, fall under the influence of this appre- hension long before it has reached the lower and more reckless classes of society. Admirable, therefore, as an auxiliary to the regular force in case of peril from foreign in- vasion, a National Guard is not to be relied on during the perils and division* of civil con- flict. It always has, and always will fail in extremit}', when a war of opinion agitates the state. The only sure support of order in such unha]ipy circumstances is to be found in a numerous and honourable body of regular sol diers. Let not the sworn defender of order be tainted by the revolutionary maxim, that the duties of the citizen are superior to those of the soldier, and that nature formed them as men, before society made them warriors. The first duty of a soldier, the iirsl principle of ARNOLDS ROME. SHKi military brncur, is fidelity to the executive power. In crushing^ an insurrection of the populace in a mixed government, he is not enslavmg his fellow-citizens ; he is only turn- ing the efforts of freedom into their proper channel, and preventing the contest of opinion from dt'sencrating into that of force. Liberty has as much to hope from his success as tran- quillity : nothing is so fatal to its f flabiishmenl as the vitilcnce exerted fur its eii>f th«' ^ s ; ,T'>i '• •• •■>.,rc that wc ex- perience the insecurity, i lines<(,nnd the rap ly .' Ai>n\ with whii-h the great : nnti- qnify. by a word or an cj: .. :. ,;cd its character, or revealed it.- hiv- tor)* ot , .irly to the ricissitudes of prosperity and diimster, of good •nUlorv of R«>nii' M»»irrc>rnM Votnc. I.oii.l'iti I. I riilne. Aiiguni, I'^SS Hv 'n»<>m>»» Arnnt'l. T» P . fli-tf! and evil fortune, which we observe in the na- tions of the world at this time. The brilliant meteor of Athenian greatness disappeared from the world almost as soon as the bloody phantas- magoria of the French Revolution. In half-a century after they arose, naught remained of either but the works of genius they had pro- duced, and the deeds of glor)- they had done. The wonders of Napoleon's reign faded as ra- pidly as the triumphs of the Macedonian con- queror; and the distant lustre of Babylon and Nineveh is faintly recalled by the ephemeral dynasties which have arisen, under the pres- sure of Arabian or Mogul conquest, in the re- gions of the east in modem times. But, in the Roman annals, a different and mightier system developes itself. From the infancy of the re- public, from the days even of the kings, and the fabulous reigns of Romulus and Nuiiia.an un- broken progress is exhibited which never ex- perienced a permanent reverse till the eagles of tne republic had crossed the Euphrates, and all the civilized world, from 'he wall of Anlo- nius to the foot of Mount Allis, was subjected to their arms. Their reverses, equally with their triumphs — their defeats, alike with their victories — their infant struggles with the cities of Latium, not less than their later contests with Carthage and Milhridates^-contribiitfd tr> develope their sireiigth, and .inav bi- r as the direct causes of their doiiiiiiinn. in the long wars with the Etruscan and 8am- nitc communities that tin- discipline and tactics were slowly and |)ainfully arquirctl, which en- •I) to fare the banded slrrn:;th of the I lian cnnfedrracy, — and in the des- P'-ralc struggle with Hannibal, that the resolu- tion and ,vkill were drawn forth which so soon, on its Icrminntion, gave them the empire of the ■ !. The durability of the fa: in rtion to the tardiness of its .nnd ihr soliditv of its m.'iterinls. The iwi i\c vul lures which Rnmulus beheld on llie I'.ilaiine Hill were emblematic of the twelve rhle, hear nnt)-', ti"i-,rr '• d !,>• oilier Were stai n tin- rlinr.T '.-r il' 'iiied lo win, and W' to hoM, the iiMpirc of the worhl. To the latest limes the h; :..ry of infant Rome, with nil its »t;endaiil !••.'• nds, must, therefore, form the Bi'i • ■l<'7atii)g '''t for il ■ sinieii..n of \ . iig n f.i picture, if not of the actual rvcnis of that in- teresling period, nt least of the ideas and fecl- ingRthen prevalent nmonest a nation called lo such exalt"-, 1 .!• • ■ . • ,„. feocd With a siDi it no other people will ever cither emulate their fame, or approach to their achievements. IS'otwithsianding the high place which we have assigned to IS'icbuhr in the elucidation and confirmation of early Roman history, nothing can be more apparent than that his work never will take its place as a p.^pular history of the Kepnhlic, and never rival in general estimation the fascinating pages of Livy. No one can read it for half an hour without being satisfied of that fact. Invalu- able to the scholar, the antiquarj-, the philolo- gist, it has no charms for the great mass of readers, and conveys no sort of idea to the un- learned student of the consecutive chain of events even among the very people whose his- tory it professes to portray. In this respect it labours under the same fault which is, in a less degree, conspicuous in the philosophic pages of Sir James Mackintosh's English history; that it pre-supposes an intimate acquaintance with the subject in the reader, and is to all, not nearly as well versed in it as himself, either in great part unintelligible, or intolerably dull. Heercn, whose labours have thrown such a flood of light on the Persian, Egyptian, and Carthaginian states, has justly remarked thaf Niebuhr, with all his aculeness, is to be regarded rather As an essayist on histor}-, than an actual historian. He has elucidated with extraordinary learning and skill several of the most obscure subjects in Roman annals ; and on many, especially the vital subjects of the Agrarian law, struck out ncAV lights, which, if known at all to the later writers of the empire, had been entirely lost during the change of manners and ideas consequent on the Gothic conquests. But his work is in many places so obscure, and so inuch overloaded with names, and subjects, and disquisitions, in greal part unknown to readers, even of fair classi- cal attainments and extensive general know- ledge, that it never can lake ils place among the standard histories of the world. He is totally destitute of two qualities indispensable to a great historian, and particularlv conspi- cuous in the far-famed annalists < • '\\y — powers of description, and the li al- ing eye, which, touching on every subject, brings those prominently forward only which, from their intrinsic importance, should attract the attention of the reader. He works out ever)' thing with equal care and niinuleness, and, in consequi-nce, the impression produced on the mind of an ordinary reader, is so con- fused, as to amount almost to nothing. Like Perele or Waterloo, in the imitation t>f nature, iiid landscajie painting, and historical de- ripiion in this particular are governed l>v iho line jtrineiples,) he works cuit the details of each individual object with admirable skill; but there is no huwUh of general efl'ect on his canvas, and he wants the general shmlc and . which in C ''»- ., not less l.i ' 'L rivet the eye of the spectator on a few brnliant sprds, ami proiluce on the mind even <>l the most unskilled the charm of a single emotion. Niebtihr's history, li with all its m»» fits and debcts, coiiJri« « n 'o the com 206 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. I mencement of the most important era in the annals of the republic. It is in the empire that the great want of continued annals is felt. Li- teracy speakinij, there is nothing, either in anciont or modern literature, which deserves the name of a history' of the whole period of the emperors. Tiilemont has, with unwearied industry and admirable accuracy, collected all that the inimitable fra2;ments of Tacitus, and detached lii:;hts of Seutonius, Florus, and the panecryrists have left on this vast subject; and Gibbon has, with incomparable talent, thrown, in his first chapters, over the general conditions of the empire, the light of his ge- nius and the colouring of his eloquence. But Tiilemont, though a laborious and valuable compiler, is no historian ; if any one doubts this, let him take up one of his elaborate quartos and try to read it. Gibbon, in his im- mortal work, the greatest monument of his- torical industry and ability that exists in the world, has given a most luminous view of the events which led to the decline and fall of the empire, and erected, with consummate talent, a bridge across the gulf which separates an- cient from modern story. But he begins only to narrate events with any minuteness at the period when the empire had already attained to its highest elevation ; he dismisses in a few pages the conquests of Trajan, the wisdom of Nerva, the beneficence of Marcus Aurelius, and enters into detail for the first time, when the blind partiality of Marcus Antoninus, and the guilt of his empress, had prepared in the accession and vices of Commodus, the com- mencement of that long series of depraved emperors who brought about the ruin of the empire. What do we know of the conquests of Trajan, the wars of Severus, the victories of Aurelian T Would that the pencil of the author of the Decline and Fall had throM'n over Ihcm the brilliant light which it has shed over the disasters or Julian, the storming of Constantinople, the conquests of Mahomet, or the obstinate wars of the Bj-zantine emperors with the Parthian princes. But his history embraces so vast a range of objects, that it could not satisfy our curiosity on the annals even of the people who formed the centre of the far-extended group, and it is rather a pic- ture of the progress of the nations who over- threw Rome, than of Rome itself. There is ample room, therefore, for a great liistorical work, as voluminous and as elo- quent as Gibbon, on the Jiinc and Progress of Roman greatness; and it embraces topics of far more importance, in the present age of the world, than the succession of disasters and fierce barbarian inroads which long shook, ar.J at last overturned the enduring fabric of the empire. Except as a matter of curiosit)', we have little connection with the progress of the Gothic and Scythian nations. Christianity lias turned the rivers of barbarism by their ^ou^ce; civilization has overspread the wilds of Scythia; gunpowder and fortified towns have given knowledge a durable superiority over ignorance; Russia stands as an impene- .rabl« barrier between Europe and the Tartar horse. But the evils which the Roman insti- u»t)ons contained in their own bosom, as well as the deeds of glory and extent of cbiTiirH)! to which they led, interest us in the nost vita particulars. Our institutions more closely re semble theirs than those of any othcT peoph recorded in history, and the causes which havi led to the vast extent of our dominion and du rabilily of our power, are the same which gavi them for centuries the empire of thi world The same causes of weakness, also, are no-v assailing us which once destroyed them ; we too, have wealth imported from all parts of th' world to corrupt our manners, and an over grown metropolis to spread the seeds of vie and effeminacy, as from a common centre over the length and breadth of the land ; we too, have patricians striving to retain powe handed down to them by their ancestors, an plebeians burning with the desire of distinc tion, and the passion for political elevatio: which springs from the spread of opulenc among the middle classes ; we, too, have Grac chi ready to hoist the standard of disunio by raising the question of the Agrarian lav and Syllas and Mariuses to rear their hostil banners at the head of the aristocratic and d( mocratic factions ; in the womb of time, i provided for us as for them, the final ove) throw of our liberties, under the successfi leader of the popular part)', and long ages o decline under the despotic rule imposed upo us b}' the blind ambition and eastern equalit of the people. A fair and philosophic histor of Rome, therefore, is a subject of incalculabl importance to the citizens of this, and of ever other constitutional monarchy ; in their error we may discern the mirror of our own — i their misfortunes the prototypes of those w are likely to undergo — in their fate, that whicl in all human probabilit}', awaits ourselves. Such a history never, in modern times, coul have been written but at this period. All sul sequent ages, from the days of Cicero, ha\' been practically ignorant of the very elemen of political knowledge requisite for a rigl imderstanding or fair discussion of the sul ject. In vain were the lessons of political wi dom to be found profusely scattered throug the Roman historians — in vain did Sallust ar Tacitus point, by a word or an epithet, to th important conclusions deducible from the civil convulsions ; — the practical experiene the daily intercourse with republican institi tions were awanting, which were necessary' give the due weight to their reflections. Tl lessons of political wisdom were so constantl brought home to the citizens of antiquity by tl storms and dissensions of the Forum, that the deemed it unnecessary to do more than allnc to them, as a subject on which all were agree and with which every one was familiar. Lit first principles in our House of Commcms, thf were universally taken for granted, and. ther fore, never made the theme of serious illustr tion. It is now only that we begin to pcrcei^ the weighty sense and condensed wisdom r many expressions which dropped seeming unconsciously from their historical writer that dear-bought experience has taught us th pride, insolency, and corrupt principles are ll main sources of popular ambition in our time as in the days of Catiline ; and that the sayir ARNOLD'S ROME. 207 of Johnson ceases to pass for a witty paradox: 'Palriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Dr. Arnold has now fairly set himself to work with this noble task, and he is, in many respects, peculiarly fitted for the undertaking. Long known to the classical world as an ac- complished scholar, and the learned editor of the best edition of Thucydides extant, he is still more familiar to many of our readers as the energetic head-master of Kugby school ; and is to lliis hour looked up to with mingled sentiments of awe and affection by many of the most celebrated characters of the age. The fir>t volume of the great work in which he is engaged alone is published, which brings down the history of the Republic to the burn- ing of Rome by the Goths, but it atfords a fair specimen of the spirit and ability with which the remainder is likely to be carried on. In many respects he has shown himself ad- mirably calculated for the great but diilicult •ask wi>ich he has undertaken. His classical attainments, both in Greek and Roman litera- ture, are of the verj' highest order; his indus- ,r)' is indefatigable, and he possesses much of Aat instinctive glance or natural sagacity which enabled IS'iebuhr, amidst the fictions and chaos of ancient annals, to fix at once on .he outlines of truth and the course of real Revolution to ihectern.al execration of mankind There is no writer on America who has bruughl forward sue!) a ho.st of facts decisive airauist republican institutions as Miss .MartunMu, whom the liberals extol as the only author who has given a veracioys account of the transat- lantic democracies; and we desire no other witness but Dr. Arnold to the facts which de- monstrate that it was the cxlravagiiiu preten- sion and ambition of the comm'in.s, which, in the end, proved fatal to the liberties of Rome. The Campagna of Rome, the fields of Lalium, the Alban Mount, the Palatine Hill, were fami- liar to the childhood of us all ; and not the least delightful hours of the youth of many of us have been spent in exploring the realities of that enchanting region. We transcribe with pleasure Dr. Arnold's animated and correct description of it, drawn from actual observa- tion with the hand of a master. " The territory of the original Rome during its first period, the true Ager Romanns, could be gone round in a single day. It did not extend beyond the Tiber at all, nor probably beyond the Anio; and on the east and south, where it had most room to spread, its limit was between five and six miles from the cit)'. This Ager Romanus was the exclusive property of the Roman people, that is of the houses ; it did not pvents. His powers of description are of no include the lands conquered from the Latins, ordinar}- kind, as our readers will at once per- j and given back to them again when the Latins ceive from the extracts we are about to lay be- "ore them; and many of his reflections prove Siat he is endowed with that faculty of draw- in;: general conclusions from particular events, which, when not pushed too far, is the surest of the real genius for philosophical his- br. .\mold, it is well known, is a whig — per- naps, wc may add, an ultra-liberal. So far fiom objecting to his book on this account, we hail it with the more satisfaction that it docs come from an author of such principles, and therefore that it can safely be referred to as a work in which the truth of ancient events is not likely to be disguised or perverted to an- swiT the views at least of the conservative parly in (Jreat Britain. We arc satisfied from mnny insi.'iii' viiliime before us, that he is of an i;. , ■•, searching turn of mind, and thai he would deem himself dishonoured if he concealed or altered any wll-.iscertainrd fnois in Roman history. More th.in this wimIo re. We not otily do n , ly enjoy, his occasional ir. jiiberal views in what we may call linnian /m/i- \y- «? in them the best ^'iiarantec thai ' itistancei aeainst democratic pnii- erted in iu;heTiti<' fiilrA a writT i-- rat wc hnM it ;i'rf'TtIy nu rinmpli it' ti ir.h what i ical ipih <.iis, Thf c»'i ng whii'ii r.innot W suji; jf an honest opponent, awycr knows the value anrl may itc. relied on as . .f )i' . T II 1 fir 1 ri!#«<|, Pro- rid li)>cral, became the plebs or commons of Rome. Ac- cording to the augurs, the Ager Romanus was a peculiar district in a religious sense; aus- pices could be taken within its bounds which could be taken nowhere without them. "And now, what was Rome, and what was the country around it, which have both acquired an interest such as can cease only when earth itself shall perish? The hills of Rome are such as we rarely see in England, low in height, but with steep and rocky sides. In early times the natural wood still remaineil in patches amidst the buildings, as at this day it grow.s here and there on the green sides of the Monte Testaceo. Across the Tiber the ground rises to a greater hei^'ht than that of the Roman hills, but its summit is a level, unbroken line; whilo the heights, which opposite to Rome it in- mediately from the riv«"r, iindiT tii of Janiculus and Valicanus, then swept away to some distance from it, and return in their high- fst and bolilest form at the Mnns .Marius, just the Milvian britlgr and the Flaminian 'J'lius to the west the view is immedi- ately bounded; but to the north and north-east the eye ranges over the low ground of the ('nm- pacna to the nearest line uf the .\pennineM, 'i closes up, as with a .ill, ail ibine, Latin, ami \'»\i . while over It are still distinctly to be seen the hiRh summits of the central Apennine't. covered with .snow, even at this day, for more than six ^>ut unwilling wiine.ss. Enough m t icmths in the year. Soul! !■• wide pl.Tin of the ('nun (li'd by the equally ' ,'■ ' ii can only be (iis|ini:i Every experienced | brighter light reflected from Us wni< rs. of a con ■ • ard, after ten miles of plain, the VK'' 1 bv the .Mban hills, n clll^ler ■ ties me . inr East- • iind- old ui their apologist, Thiers, «o doom the French ■ points rising out of the Campagna, hie Arran 208 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. from the sea, on the highest of which, at nearly I the same height with the summit of Hclvell)'n, stood tiic Temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the scene ' of the common worship of all the people of the [ Latin name. Immediately under this hiijhest, point lies the cratcr-likekbasin of the Alban lake; and on its nearer nm mis:ht be seen the i trees of the grove of Florentia, where the Latins held the great civil assemblies of their nation. | Further to the north, on the edge of the Alban hills, looking towards Rome, was the town and citadel of T usculum ; and beyond this, a lower summit, crowned with the walls and towers of Labicum, seems to connect the Alban hills with the lineof the Apenninzs just at the spot where the citadel of Praineste, high np on the moun- tain side, marks the opening into the country of the Hcrnicians, and into the valleys of the streams that feed the Liris. " Return ing nearer to Rome, the lowland coun- try of the Campagna is brolicn by long green swelling ridges, the ground rising and falling, as in the heath country of Surrey and Berk- shire. The streams are dull and sluggish, but the hill sides above them constantly break away into little rocky cliffs, where on every ledge the ■wild fig now strikes out its branches, and tufts of broom are clustering, but which in old times formed the natural strength of the citadels of the numerous cities of Latium. Except in these narrow dells, the present aspect of the country is all bare and desolate, with no trees nor any humafi habitation. But anciently, in the time of the early kings of Rome, it was full of independent cities, and, in its population and the careful cultivation of its little garden-like farms, must have resembled the most flourish- ing parts of Lombardy or the Netherlands." We have already adverted to the difliculty of determining where fiction ends and real history begins in the early Roman annals, and the scan- tj' foundation there is in authentic records, for any of the early legends of their history. Fully alive, however, to the exquisite beauty of these remains, aad the influence they had on the Ro- man history, as well as their importance as evincing the lofty character of their infant peo- ple, Dr. Arnold has adopted the plan of not re- jecting them altogether, but giving them in a simple narrative, something like the Bible, and commencng with his ordinary style when he arrives at events which really rest on historic ground. This is certain.y much better than entirely rejecting them; but, at the same time, it introduces a quaint style of writing, in re- counting these early events, to which we can hardly reconcile ourselves, after the rich colour- ing and graphic hand of Livy. As an example of the way in which he treats this interesting but diflicult pan: of his subject, we give his ac- count of the story of Lucretia, the exquisite episode with which Livy terminates his first book and narrative of the kings of Rome. "Now when they came back to Rome, Kin? Tarquinius was at war wiih the people of Ar- dea; and as the city was strong, his army lay a long while before it, till it should be forced to yield through famine. So the Romans had lei- sure for feasting and for diverting thomselves : »nd once Titus and Aruns were supping with their brother Sextus, and their cousin Tarqui- nius of Collatia was supping with them. Al they disputed about their wives, whose wif«( them all was the worthiest lad}'. Then sa Tarquinius of Collatia, ' Let us go and see wi^ our own eyes what our wives are doing, shall we know which is the worthiest.' Upol this they all mounted their horses and rode first to Rome ; and there they found the wives of Ti- tus, and of Aruns, and of Sextus, feasting and making merry. Then they rode on to Collatia. and it w^is late in the night; but they found Lucretia, the wife of Tarquinius of Collatia neither feasting, nor yet sleeping, but she was sitting with all her handmaids around her, and all were working at the loom. So when thej saw this, they all said, 'Lucretia is the worthi- est lady.' And she entertained her husbane' and his kinsmen, and after that they rode bacli to the camp before Ardea. "But a spirit of wicked passion seized upon Sextus, and a few days afterwards he went alone to Collatia, and Lucretia received him hospita- bl)', for he was her husband's kinsman. Ai midnight he arose and went to her chamber and he said that if she yielded not to him he would slay her and one of her slaves with her and would say to her husband that he had slair her in her adultery. So when Sextus had ac- complished his wicked purpose he went bach again to the camp. "Then Lucretia sent in haste to Rome, tc pray that her father Spurius Lucretius woulc come to her ; and she sent to Ardea to summer her husband. Her father brought along with him Publius Valerius, and her husband brough with him Lucius Junius, whom men callec Brutus. When they arrived, they asked ear nestly, 'Is all well"!' Then she told them of the wicked deed of Sextus, and she said, 'Ifyt be men, avenge it.' And they all swore to her that they would avenge it. Then she said again 'I am not guilty; yet must I too share ir the punishment of this deed, lest any shouh think that they may be false to their husband; and live.' And she drew a knife from hei bosom, and stabbed herself to the heart. " At that sight her husband and her fathe; cried aloud ; but Lucius drew the knife fron the wound, and held it up, and said, 'By thi: blood I swear that I Avill visit this deed irpor King Tarquinius, and all his accursed race neither shall any man hereafter be king ii Rome, lest he do the like wickedness.' Aud hi gave the knife to her husband, and to her fa ther, and to Publius Valerius. They marvel led to hear such words from him vvhom mer called dull ; but they swore also, and they tool- up the body of Lucretia, and carried it dowi into the forum; and they said, 'Behold thi deeds of the wicked family of Tarquinius. All the people of Collatia Avere moved, am the men took up arms, and they set a guard a the gates, that none might go out to carry tht tidings to Tarquinius, and they followed Lu cius to Rome. There, too, all the people cami together, and the crier summoned them to as semble before the tribune of the Celeres, foi Lucius held that oflice. And Lucius spoke tc them of all the tyranny of Tarquinius and hi; sons, and of the wicked deed of Sextus. An( the people in their curiae took back from Tar ARNOLDS ROME. «09 ]ainius the snverpign power, which Ihey hail l\\ri\ him, and tliey banished him and all his lamily. Then the youn2;er men followed Lu- ;ius to Ardea, to win over the army there to join them ; and the cily was left in the char:jc j{ Spiirius Lucretius. But the wicked Tullia led in haste from her house, and all, both men ind women, cursed her as she passed, and prayed that the furies of her father's blood ui^lit visit her with vencjeance. ".^[eanwhile King Tarquinjus set out with >peed to Rome to put down the tumult. But Lucius turned aside from the road that he nisht not meet him, and came to the camp ; md the soldiers joyfully received him, and :hey drove out the sons of Tarquinius. King farquinius came' to Rome, but the gates were shut, and they declared to him from the walls ihe sentence of banishment which* had been 'd against him and his family. So he I'd to his fortune, and went to live at Crere srith his sons Titus and Aruns. His other son. Sextus, went to Gabii, and the people ihere, remembering how he had betrayed them to his father, slew him. Then the army left the camp before Ardea and went back to llome. And all men said, ' Let us follow the good laws L)f the good King Servius ; and let us meet in 9ur centuries, according as he directed, and let us choose two men year by year to govern us, instead of a king.' Then the people met in their centuries in the field of Mars, and '.hey chose two men to rule over them, Lucius iuuius, whom men called Brutus, and Lucius Tarquinius of Collatia." Every classical reader must perceive the i^bject which our author had in view. He has in great part translated Livy, and he wishes to ^jreserve the legend which he has rendered im- nortal ; but he is desirous, at the same time, >f doing it, as he himself tells us, in such a :ier that it shall be impossible for any r, even the most illiterate, to imagine that le IS recording a real event. It may be pre- udicc, and the force of early association, but ve ran hardly reconcile ourselves to this Mo- • the history of the most I . ry author's style, to be ; be natural. The reader cx- 1 .... .i ..agreeable feeling in coming pon such quaint and perhaps aderted pas- ' ' ' habituated U) the flowing and . !hi' author. It woiilfl bi* bet- ;r, we coiic'iv", to write the \v one niforin in.iiimr. and mark the ■! b*-- ver-n il. iry and authentic part.s by a ' iiir type, or some other equally :iriinn. But this is a trivial mat -d by many facts and passages in lis later We have previously noticed the decisive rid'-n'-'- w! f'loaca '^T ! the in fh'- juin caty wi;li ' iTord ol' ihf early > "f the Woman lonarchy. But we v. . : aware, till rcad- ig Arnold — even Nicbuhr has not so distinctly rought out the f.irt — that at th- • f the (pulsion of the Tnrquins anci til' tice- lent of the Republic, Rome waj> ui ready a 14 powerful monarchy, whose sway extended from the northern extremity of the Campagna to the rocks of Terracina; and that it was then more powerful than it ever was for the first hundred and fifty years of the Com- monwealth! The Roman kingdom is com* pared by Arnold, under the last of the kings, to Judea under Solomon ; and the fact of a treaty, recorded in Polybius, boir.g in that year concluded with Carthage, proves that the state had already acquired consideration with dis- tant slates. " Setting aside," says our author, " the tyran- ny ascribed to Tarquinius, and remembering that il was his policy to deprive the commons of their latclj' acquired citizenship, and to treat them like subjects rather than members of the stale, the picture given of the wealth and greatness of .ludea under Solomon may convey some idea of the stale of Rome under its latter kings. Powerful amongst surround- ing nations, exposed to no hostile invasions, with a flourishing agriculture and an active commerce, the country was great and pros- perous ; and the king was enabled to execute public works of the highest magnificence, and to invest himself with a splendour unknown in the earlier times of the monarchy." But mark the efliectupon the external power and internal liberties of the nation, conse- quent on the violent change in the govern- ment and establishment of the Commonwealth, as portraj'ed in the authentic pages of this liberal historian. " In the first year of the commonwealth, the Romans still possessed the dominion enjoyed by their kings ; all the cities of the coast of Latium, as we have already seen, were subject to them as far as Terracina. Within twelve years, wc cannot rcrtninly say hnir murk sooner, these were all become intlr/ienrfcnt. This is e.isily in- telligible, if we only take into account the loss to Rome of an able and absolute king, the na- tural weakness of an unsettled government, and the distractions produced by the king's at- tempts to recover his throne. 'Fhe Latins may have held, as we are told of the Sabines in this very time, that their di-penilent alliance with Rome had been concluded with King Tarquiniu.s, and that as he was king no longer, and as his sons had been driven out with him, all covenants between Latium ami Rome were become null and void. But it is possible also, if the chronology of the common story of these limes can be at all depended on, that the Latin cities owed their independence to the Etruscan conquest of Rome. For that war, which has been given in its poetical version w.ir with I'orsenna, was really a great ik of the EiriiM'an power upon the na- lums sotithwanl of Etruria, in the very front of whom lay the Romans. In the very next year alter the expulsion of the king, according to the common story, and certain' le time within the period with which v \v concerned, the Etruscans fell upon K"iii'\ I'ho result of the war is, indeed, as ■ fr.m:*' Iv dis. guised in the poetical story as < * invasion of Spain is in the rom.n U'ino was Completely conquered ; all the territory which the kings had won on the right bank o' 310. ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. the Tiber wa5 now lost. Rome itself was sur- rendered to the Etruscan conqueror; his sove- reigntv was fully acknowledged, the Romans gave up their arms, and recovered their city and territory on condition of renouncing the use of iron except for implements of agricul- ture. But this bondage did not last long; the Etruscan power was broken by a great defeat sustained before Aricia; for after the fall of Rome the conquerors attacked Latium, and while besieging Aricia^ the united force of the Latin cities, aided by the Greeks of Cumrc, succeeded in destroying their army, and in confining their power to their own side of the Tiber. Still, however, the Romans did not re- cover their territory on the right bank of that river, and the number of their tribes, as has been already noticed, was consequently less- ened by one-third, being reduced from thirty to twenty. "Thus within a short time after the banish- ment of the last king, the Romans lost all their territory on the Etruscan side of the Tiber, and all their dominion over Latium. A third people M'ere their immediate neighbours on the north-east, the Sabines. The cities of the Sabines reached, says Varro, from Reate, to the distance of half a day's journey from Rome ; that is, according to the varying esti- mate of a day's journey, either seventy-five or an h-^ndred stadia, about ten or twelve miles. " It is certain, also, that the first enlarge- ment of the Roman territory, after its great diminution in the Etruscan war, took place towards the north-east, between the Tiber and the Anio; and here were the lands of the only new tribes that were added to the Roman na- tion, for the space of more than one hundred and twenty years after the establishment of the commonwealth." Such were the disastrous effects of the re- volution which expelled Taiquinius Superbus, even though originating, if we may believe the story of Lucretia, in a heinous crime on his part, on the external power and territorial possessions of Rome. Let us next inquire whether the social condition of the people was improved by the change, and the plebeians reaped those fruits from the violent change of the government which they were doubtless led to expect. "The most important part," says Arnold, •fin the history of the first years of the com- monwealth is the tracing, if possible, the gra- dual depression of the commons to that ex- treme point of misery which led to the institu- tion of the tribunalship. We have seen that immediately after the expulsion of the king, the commons shared in the advantages of the revolution; but within a few years we find them so oppressed and powerless, that their utmost hopes aspired, not to the assertion of f»olitical equality with the burghers, but mere- y to the obtaining protection from personal injuries. "The specific character of their degradation is stated to have been this; that there pre- vailed among them severe distress, amounting ill many cases to actual ruin; that to relieve themselves from their poverty, they were in the habit of borrowing money of the burghers; that the distress continuing, they became ge nerally insolvent; and t^at as the law of, debtor and creditor was exceedingly severej they became liable in their persons to the cruelty of the burghers, were treated by them as slaves, confined as such in their workhouses, kept to taskwork, and often beaten at the dis- cretion of their task-masters." Various were the miseries to which tht commons were reduced in consequence of the revolution, and inexorable the rigour witt which the nobles pressed the advantage the) had gained by the abolition of the kingly forir of government. The civil convulsions anc general distress. Dr. Arnold tells us, terminatec in the establishment of an exclusive opprcssiv( aristocracv, interrupted occasionally by the le galized drepotism of a single individual. "Thus the monarchy was exchanged for ai exclusive aristocracy, in which the burghers o patricians possessed the whole dominion of th< state. For mixed as was the influence in thi assembly of the centuries, and although thi burghers through their clients exercised ni small control over it, still they did not think i safe to intrust it with much power. In th election of consuls, the centuries could onl; choose out of a number of patrician or burghe, candidates ; and even after this election it rei mained for the burghers in their great counci in the curite to ratify it or to annul it, by coD' ferring upon, or refusing to the persons s> elected the ' Imperium ;' in other words, thi' sovereign power which belonged to the coti , suls as the successors of the kings, and whici except so far as it was limited within the wall of the city, and a circle of one mile withot; them, by the right of appeal, was absolute ove' life and death. As for any legislative powe in this period of the commonwealth, the coi suls were their own law. No doubt the burgl ers had their customs, which in all gre; points the consuls would duly observe, bi cause, otherwise on the expiration of the; office they would be liable to arraignment bi fore the curiae, and to such punishment £ that sovereign assembly might please to inflic but the commons had no such security, an the uncertainty of the consul's judgments Wf the particular grievance which afterwards le to the formation of the code of the tweh tables. " We are lold, however, that within ten yeai of the first institution of the consuls the bur. crs found it necessary to create a single niagistr,^ with powers still more absolute, who was to exe cise the full sovereignty of a king, and n without that single check to irhich the kings of Rf had been subjected. The Master of the ])Coy that is, of the burghers, or, as he was otli' wise called, the Dictator, was appointed, it true, for six months only ; and therefore liabi like the consuls, to be arraigned after the e piration of his ofl^ce, for any acts of tyrant which he might have committed during i continuance. But whilst he retained his i fice he was as absolute without the walls oft! city as the consuls were within them ; ncith commoners nor burghers had any right of n peal from his sentence, although the latter h; ARNOLD'S ROME. ni i enjoyed this protection in the times of the mo- or tribe masters; but instead of hein^^ nicrelj narchy At length the misery of the people, flowin the oflicers of one -particular tribe, and exer- cising an aniliority only over Ihe members of ffrom the revolution, became so excessive that! their own order, liiey were named tribunes of 'they could endure it no lonecr, and they took j the commons at larce, and their power, as the resolution t» separate altogether from their oppressors, and retire to the sacred hill to found a new commonwealth. " FiHeen years after the expulsion of Tar- quinius. the commons, driven to despair by their distress, and exposed without protection 'to the capricious cruelty of the burj^hers, re- solved to endure their degraded state no longer. The particulars of this second revolution are as uncertain as those of the overthrow of the monarchy ; but thus much is certain, and is (remarkable, that Ihe commons sought safety, not victor}' ; the)' desired to escape from Rome, not to govern it. It may be true that the com- mons who were left in Rome gathered together on the Avcntine, the quarter appropriated to their order, and occupied the hill as a fortress ; but it is universally agreed that the most effi- :ient part of their bod}', who were at that time in the field as soldiers, deserted their generals, ind marched otTto a hill beyond the Anio; that s, to a spot beyond the limits of the Ager Ro- nanus. the proper territory of the burghers, Jut within the district which had been assigned .0 one of the newly created tribes of the com- nons, the Crustuminian. Here they establish- 'd themselves, and here they proposed to found I new city of their own, to which they would lave gathered their families, and the rest of heir order who were left behind in Rome, and lave given up their old city to its original pos- -ors, the burghers and their clients. But burghers were as unwilling to lose the ervices of the commons, as the Egyptians in he like case to let the Israelites go, and they ndeavoured by every means to persuade them o return. To show how little the commons hou^lu of gaining political power, we have nly to notice their demands. They required . general cancelling of the obligations of in- olvent debtors, and the release of all those ns, in default of payment, had 1 over to thn pnwr of their credi- >r> ; ainl liirther, the ! nn having two of icir own body ackn' I by the burghers s their protectors; and to make this proicc- '" '!, the persons of those who ntTorded as inviolable as those of the her- protectors m stopping any exercise of oppres- sion towards their own body, extended over the burghers, and was by them solemnly ac- knowledged. The number of the tribunes was probabl}" suggested by that of the consuls; there were to be two chief officers of the com- mons, as there were of the burghers." Thus, all that the Roman populace e.iined by the revolution which overturned the kingly power, was such a diminution of terrilon,- and external importance as it required them more than one hundred and fifty years to recover, and such an oppressive form of aristocratic government as compelled them to take refuge under a dictator, and led to such a degree of misery as, eighteen years after the convulsion, made them ready to quit their country and homes, and become exiles from their native land ! At the close of the third centur}' of Rome, and fifty years after the expulsion of the Tar- quins, Arnold gives the following picture of the external condition of the Republic: "At the close of the third century of Rome, the warfare which the Romans had to main- tain against the Opican nations was generally defensive; that the vEquians and Volscians had advanced from the line of the Apennines and established themselves on the Alban hills, in the heart of Latium ; that of the thirty Latin states which had formed the league with Rome in the year 201, thirteen were now either destroy- ed, or were in the possession of the Opicans; that on the Alban hills themselves, Tusculum alone remained independent; and that there was no other friendly city to obstruct the ir- ruptions of the enemy into the territfiry of Rome. .Aceonlingly, that territory was plun- dered year after year, and whatever defeats the plunderers may at times have sustained, yet they were never deterred from renewing a contest which they found in the main profitable and glfirious. So gmilly had thr piiirr iinii ilo- mintini of Home fallen tince Iht overthrote -if tht wotuirrhy." It was by slow decrees, and in a long scries of contests, continued without intermission for two hundred years, that the eommons rerover- liberties they hail lost from the ronse- ■ s of this triuinjih in this first convul- mon; so true it is, in nil ages, Ihnt the peopio arc not only never permanent gainers, but in the end Ihe greatest losers by Ihe revolution in whieh they had ' leoiupletely virtoinoiis. The next L'' 'I convulsion nf K. line was that consequent on tne overtnrow of the Decemvirs. The stjcccss of that revolution operated in the end grievously to the preiudica of Ihe commons, and retarded, by ' '•• liiry, the advance of real fieednm. ' lO ktiiiws that the Decemvirs were cl'-ii-il in re- moihl the laws of the rominonwralth : that and con* lllird til • ' ■■ " -"-Ij amc which the chf: .1 that i 'he ad borne before, — they were caiied Trtbuiii, i general and unconlrollable ludigiiatioa excited iid might be slain by any one with impunity. 'o these tcrr" • • ••—•»■" — ^d ; a solemn •rntv was ' iiem and Ihe ; and I f..r leir ]) ■ '••rity, that th»*v wimi.l hold inviolable le j>ei'>"iis of two (ifllcrrn, to be chosen by le cminrK's on the field of Mars, whose busi- ets it i)'."!!! I ! • " ,'■■•• ny enniiii";i"T ul; that is lo s-ay. wh" might rfsruc any eblor from the powrr ,.f V-, rrr,tit,,r, if ihey onceived it to been; llv exert- Ihey shamefully abused their trust d. The two olTicei ' 212 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. by the atrocious violence of Appius to the daughter of Virginiiis. A justcr cause for re- sistance, a fairer ground for the overthrow of existing authority, could not be imagined ; it was accordingly successful, and the immediate effect of the popular triumph was a very great accession of political power to the commons. Arnold tells us — " The revolution did not stop here. Other and deeper changes were effected ; but they lasted so short a time, that their memory has almost vanished out of the records of history. The assembly of the tribes had been put on a level with that of the centuries, and the same principle was followed out in the equal divi- sion of all the magistracies of the state be- tween the patricians and the commons. Two supreme magistrates, invested with the high- est judicial power, and discharging also those important duties which were afterwards per- formed by the censors, were to be chosen every year, one from the patricians, and the other from the commons. Ten tribunes of the soldiers, or decemviri, chosen, five from the patricians and five from the commons, were to command the armies in war, and to watch over the rights of the patricians ; while ten tribunes of the commons, also chosen in equal proportions from both orders, were to watch over the liber- ties of the commons. And as patricians were thus admitted to the old Iribuneship, so the as- semblies of the tribes were henceforth, like those of the centuries, to be held under the sanctions of augury, and nothing could be de- termined in them if the auspices were unfa- vourable. Thus the two orders were to be made fully equal to one another ; but at the same time they were to be kept perpetually dis- tinct ; for at this very moment the whole twelve tables of the laws of the decemvirs received the solemn sanction of the people, although, as we have seen, there x-as a law in one of the last tables which declared the marriage of a patrician with a plebeian to be unlawful. " There being thus an end of all exclusive magistracies, whether patrician or plebeian ; and all magistrates being now recognised as acting in the name of the Avhole people, the persons of all were to be regarded as equally sacred. Thus the consul Horatius proposed and carried a law which declared that, who- ever harmed any tribune of the commons, any jedile, any judge, or any decemvir, should be outlaTod and accursed ; that any man might slay him, and that all his property should be confiscated to the temple of Ceres. Another law was passed by M. Duilius, one of the tri- bunes, carrying the penalties of the Valerian law to a greater height against any magistrate who should either neglect to have new magis- trates appointed at the end of the year, or who should create them without giving the right of appeal from their sentence. Whosoever vio- lated either of these provisions was to be burned alive as a public enemy. " Finally, in order to prevent the decrees of the senate from being tampered with by the patricians, Horatius and Valerius began the practice of having them carried to the temple pf Ceres on the Avcntinc, and there laid up onder the care of the a;diles of the commons. " This complete revolution was conduct© chiefly, as far as appears, by the two consuls and by M. Duilius. Of the latter we shook: Avish to have some further knowledge ; it is ai unsatisfactory history, in which we can onl: judge of the man from his public measures; instead of being enabled to form some estiraat- of the merit of his measures from our acquaint ance with the character of the man. But ther is no doubt tiiat the new constitution attemptei, to obtain objects for which the time was no yet come, which were regarded rather as th triumph of a party, than as called for by th wants and feelings of the nation ; and therefor the Roman constitution of 30G was as shor Jived as Simon de Montfort's provisions of Oi. ford, or as some of the strongest measures oi the Long Parliament. An advantage pursuei too far in politics, as well as in war, is apt t end in a repulse." After a continued struggle of seven year however, this democratic constitution yields to the reaction in favour of the old institution of the state, and the experienced evils of th' new, — and another constitution was the resu of the struggle which restored matters to th, same situation in which they had been befoi; the overthrow of the Decemvirs ; with the a and tribunes of the soldiers ; and secondly, l eligibility of the commons to share in some the powers thus divided. But the partitii even in theory, was far from equal : the t^ censors, who were to hold their office for fi years, Avere not oaily chosen from the patriciai but, as Niebuhr thinks, by them, that is, the assembly of the curia; ; the two qua;sto Aviio judged in cases of blood, were also chos from the patricians, although by the ccnturi' Thus the civil power of the old prtetors was its most important points still exercised ( clusively by the patricians ; and e\'en th( military power, which Avas professedly to open to both orders, Avas not transmitted to i tribunes of the soldiers, Avithout some dimin tion of its majest}'. The ncAV tribuneship w not an exact image of the kingly sovereigni it Avas not a curule office, and therefore no t bune cA'er enjoyed the honour of a triumph, Avhich the conquering general, ascending the Capitol to sacrifice to the guardian gi of Home, Avas wont to be arrayed in all t insignia of royalty. ARNOLD'S ROME. 313 ! "But even the small share of power thus I (framed in theor}' to the coinmons, was in I practice withheki from them. Whether from the intlueiice of the patricians in the centuries, or by religious pretences urged b)- the augurs, or by the enormous and arbitrary power of ! refusing votes which the officer presiding at I the comitia was wont to exercise, the college [of the tribunes was for many years filled by I the patricians alone. And. while the censor- r j>hip was to be a fixed institution, the tribunes I of the soldiers were to be replaced whenever it might appear needful by two consuls; and |fn the consulship no plebeian was so much as • lily eligible. Thus the victory of the aris- racy may seem to have been complete, and I we may wonder how the commons, after lh.iving carried so triumphantly the law of iCanuleius, should have allowed the political ! rights asserted for them by his colleagues, to [have been so partially conceded in theory, and I in practice to be so totally withheld. "The explanation is simple, and it is one of the most valuable lessons of history. The nmons obtained those reforms which they i red, and they desired such only as their )siate was ripe for. They had witlulrawn in times past to the Sacred Hill, but it was to escape from intolerable personal oppression; they had recently occupied the Avcntine in arms, but it was to get rid of a tyranny which 'nn^ered the honour of their wives and - jghters, and to recover the protection of [their tribunes ; they had more lately still re- fired to the Janiculum, but it was to remove in insulting distinction which embittered the < of private life, and imposed on their ildren, in many instances, the incon- Ivenicnces, if not the reproach of illegitimacy. These were all objects of universal and per- 'ional interest; and these the commons were ' i not to relinquish. But the possible ■n of a few distinguished members of ncir body to the highest offices of state con- ^frned the mass of the commons but little. They had their own tribunes for their pers(mal • n ; but cunile magistracies, ami the nent of the commfmwealtti, sc-uH'd to iig to the patricians, or at least - in their hands without any great So it is that all things come best in their ■ : that political power is then most fxprrispd liv .1 pf'oplc. whon it h.is not »ant of It. rtecurily lor person and property 'iiaMfs a nation togrow wiH' •' ' '-rruption; n r(tnif:TiMnx for this a p^f. e of law 1 It nn "th'T . . 1 more nr :. m<"n iwakf-n to the hi(;he ment to that form of giA'ernment, and th; balance of power, which alone can rendc these blessings permanent, — which render pn perty the ruling, and numbers only the cor trolling power, — which give to weight of po: session and intellect the direction of aflfair and intrust to the ardent feelings of the mult tude the duty only of preventing their excesse: or exposing their corruption. Without th former, the rule of the people degenerates, i a few years, in eveiy instance recorded i history, into licentious excess, and absolni tyranny; without the latter, the ambition c selfishness of the aristocrac}' perverts to thei own private purposes the domain of the stati Paradoxical as.it may appear, it is strictly an literally true, that the general inclination O' abstract students, remote from a practic; intercourse Avith mankind, to republican prii ciples, is a decisive proof of the experience necessity for Conservative policy that ha always been felt in the actual administratio of affairs. Recluse or speculative men becom' attached to liberal ideas, because they see thei constanll}' put forth, in glowing and generoi;; language, by the popular orators and writei in every age : they associate oppression wit the government of a single ruler, or a comp;: ratively small number of persons of gre; possessions, because they see, in general, th; goyernment is established on one or other c these bases; and, consequently, mos of ft; oppressive acts recorded in history have em; nated from such authority. They forget thi the opportunity of abusing power has been s: generally afforded to these classes by the e:' perienced impossibility of intrusting it to an other ; that if the theorj' of popular goveri meat had been practicable, Democracy, instea: of exhibiting only a few blood-stained sped in history, would have occupied the large: space in its annals; that if the people had bee, really capable of directing affairs, they wouli; in every age, have been the supreme authorit; and the holders of property the declaimei against their abuses; and that no proof cant so decisive against the practicability of an form of government, as the fact, that it he been found, during six thousand years, of sue rare occurrence, as to make even learne persons, till taught by experience, blind la v tendency. I MIE-UJEAU 816 MIEAHEAU/ " It IS a melancholj- fact," says Madame dc BtafI, " lliat wliile the human race is conti- nually advancins^ by the acquisitions of intel- lect. It is doomed to move perpetually in the same circle of error, from the influence of the passions." If this observation was just, even when this great author wrote, how much more is it now applicable, when a new generation has arisen, blind to the lessons of experience, and we in this free and prosperous land, have yielded to the same passions, and been seduced by the same delusions, which, three-and-forty years ago, actuated the French people, and have been deemed inexcusable by all subse- quent historians, evea in its enslaved popula- tion ! It would appear inconceivable, that the same errors should thus be repeated by successive nations, without the least regard to the les- sons of history; that all the dictates of expe- rience, all the conclusions of wisdom, all the penalties of weakness, should be forgotten, before the generation which has suffered under their neglect is cold in their graves; that the same vices should be repeated, the same crimi- nal ambition indulged, to the end of the world; if we did not recollect that it is the very essence of passion, whether in nations or individuals, to be insensible to the sufferings of others, and to pursue its own headstrong inclinations, re- pardlfss alike of the admonitions of reason, and the experience of the world. It would seem that the vehemence of desire in nations is as little liable to be influenced by considera- tions of prudence, or the slightest regard to the con^^qn'-'ices, as the career of intemperance in ind ' : and that, in like manner, as every sue age beholds multitudes who, in the pursuit of desire, rush headlong down the gulf of r,^-' r,^ so every successive generation is ''. I witness the sacrifice of national pr . r. en<'-. . M- bition. Providence has appnmied reriain trials for nations as well as individuals; and for those who. disrccarding the admonitions of ^ ■ • • • • • ■■ ■ yir ' pomtrd 1(1 r criminal ■'.'■ .. at of cmpir''s Fori wi/pH lllw • in • disrarcled, the jftisnns of ♦•'< I : ▼ition:^" •■ — • " "• 1- cal nil 1- ttitf Ki. 1 ■ »"n. I «b«D tlia Kgforni iiill waa bvfor« lliv iiau«« pf !"««». than the paths of private life. ■' ion for I- nniinn ;• I destroyed: a new cnnMitution introduce^ amidst the unanimous applause of tlie peo pic: the monarch placed himself at the head of the movement, the nobles joined the com* mons, the clergy united in the work of reform : all classes, by common consent, conspired in the demolition and reconstruction of the con- stitution. A new era was thought to have dawned on human affairs; the age of gold to be about to return from the regeneration of mankind. The consequence, as all the world knows, was ruin, devastation, and misery, unparalleled in modern times : the king, the queen, the royal family were beheaded, the nobles exiled or guillotined, the clergy confiscated and banish- ed, the fundholders starved and ruined, the merchants exterminated, the landholders beg- gared, the people decimated. The wrath of Heaven needed no destroying angel to be the minister of its vengeance : the guilty passion* of men worked out their own and well-de served punishment. The fierce passion of de mocracy was extinguished in blood : the Reign of Terror froze every heart with horror: the tyranny of the Directory destroyed the very name of freedom : the ambition of Napoleon visited every cottage with mourning, and doomed to tears every mother in France; and the sycophancy of all classes, the natural re- sult of former license, so paved the way for military despotism, that the haui^hty emperor could only exclaim with Tiberius — " O ho- mines ad serviiulem parati !" Forty years after, the same unruly and reck- less spirit seized the very nation who had wit- nessed these horrors, ami bravely stru^'i^lrd fir twenty years to avert them from iiL-r own shores. The passion of democracy became general in all the manufacturing and tradmg classes : a large portion of the nobility were deluded by the infatuated iil- ' v yield- ing to the torrent, they ct.uld its di- rection : the ministers of the crown put them- selves at the head of the movement, ajid wielded the royal prerogative to give force i-e to lb"' ambition of the mul- . al faii;itieism a:;aia reared its hydra hrad : the ministers of religion became the objects of odium ; every thing sacred, every thine vcnerahje, the .subject of opprobrium, ' ■ ' to this tempest of passion itened men sericuisly antici* I, not II n-petition of the horrors of the 1 . .1 h Hevolution, l)Ut thi* stnyiiii: of ilir fury of democracy, the stilling of the waven of fac tion. the calming the ambition of the prople. I , That a di-lusion so extraordinary-, a blind- ••SH so infatiiatrd. should b:n • ' i^'-r the preat ;iiid I>1 ly •' ' on the theatre of Kurope. wu Uh • ui. r incredible to fiilure nc'"'- ' "». lowr-ver. that it exists, not only (he 1 unthinking millions, who, b«ing iin .^Muie of '816 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. judging of the consequences of pdlitical changes, are of no weiglit in a philnsnijhieal view of the subject, but among thinking thou- sands who arc capable of forming a correct judgment, and whose opinions on other sub- jects are highly worthy of consideration. Tliis is the circumstance wliich furnishes the real phenomenon, and into the causes of which fu- ture ages Avill anxiously inquire. It is no more surprising that a new generation of shop- keepers,' manufacturers, and artisans, should be devoured by the passion for political power, without any regard to its recent con- sequences in the neighbouring kingdom, than that youth, in every successive generation, should yield to the seductions of pleasure, or the allurements of vice, without ever thinking of the miseries it has brought upon their fa- thers, and the old time before them. But how men of sense, talent, and information ; men who really have a stake in the country, and would themselves be the first victims of revo- lution, should be carried aAvay by the same in- fatuation, cannot be so i-asily explained ; and, if it cannot be accounted for from some acci- dental circumstances, offers the most gloomy prospects for the cause of truth, and the future destinies of mankind. "The direction of literature and philosophy in France, during the last half of the IStli centur}-," says Madame de Stael, " was ex- tremely bad ; but, if I may be allowed, the ex- pression, the direction of ignorance has "been still worse; for no one book can do much mischief to those who read all. If the idlers in the world, on the other hand, occupy them- selves by reading a few moments, the work which they read makes as great an impression on them as the arrival of a stranger in the desert; and if that work abounds in sophisms, they have no opposite arguments to oppose to it. The discovery of printing is truly fatal to those who read o)ily by halves or chance ; for know- ledge, like the Lance of Argail, inflicts wounds which nothing but itself can heal."* In this observation is to be found the true solution of the extraordinary political delusions which now overspread the world; and it is much easier to discern the causes of the calamil)', than perceive what remedy can be devised for it. If you could give to all who can read the newspapers, either intellect to understand, or taste to relish, or money to buy, or time to read, works of historical information, or philoso- phical wisdom, there might be a reasonable nope that error in the end would be banished from thought, and that political knowledge, like the Thames water in the course of a long voyage, would »vork itself pure. But as it is obvious to every one practically acquainted with the condition of mankind, that ninety- nine out of the humlred who peruse the daily press, are either totally incapable of ft)rming a saund opinion from their own reflections on any subject of thought, or so influenced by prejudice as to be inaccessible to the force of rta-sor"., or so much swayed l)y passion as to ne deaf to argument, or so destitute of infor- ►nation as to be insensible to its force, it is • Un rAUemagno, iii. 2^17. hardly possible to discern any mode in which, with a daily press extensively read, and poli. tical excitement kept up, as it always will be by its authors, either truth is to become genc« rally known, or error sufliciently combated. Every one, how slender soever his intellect, how slight his information, how limited his time for study, can understand and feel gra- tified by abuse of his superiors. The com- mon slang declamation against the aristocrats, the clergy, and the throne, in France, aud against the boroughmongers, the bishops, and the peers, in England, is on the level of the meanest capacity ; and is calculated to seduce all those who are "either," in Bacon's words, "weak in judgment, or infirm in resolution; that is, the greater proportion of mankind." It is this circumstance of the universal dif« fusion of passion, and the extremely limited extent of such intellect or information as qualifies to judge on political subjects, M-hich renders the future prospects of any nation, ' which has got itself involved in the M-hirlwind '. of innovation, so extremely melancholy. Every i change M'hich is proposed holds out some im- mediute or apparent benefit, which forms the , jittraction and inducement to the multitude. ■ Every one can see and understand this imme- i diate or imaginary benefit ; and therefore the > change is clamorously demanded by the people. ! To discern the idtimate eifects again, to see how these changes are to operate on the frame of so- ciety, and the misery they are calculated to bring on the very persons who demand them, requires ; a head of more than ordinary strength,and know- j ledge of more than ordinary extent. Nature has not given the one, education can never give the other, to above one in a hundred. Hence the poison circulates universally, while the antidote is confined to a few; and therefore, in such periods, the most extravagant mea- sures are forced upon government, and a total disregard of experience characterizes the na- tional councils. It is to this cause that the extremely short duration of any institutions, which have been framed under the pressure of democratic in- fluence, is to be ascribed, and the rapidity with which they are terminated by the tranquil des- potism of the sword. Rome, in two generations, ran through the horrors of democratic convul- sions, until they were stopped by the sword of the Dictator. France, since the reform trans- ports of 1789 began, has had thirteen dilferent constitutions ; none of which subsisted two years, except such as were supported by the power of Napoleon and the bayonets of the allies. England, in five years after the people ran mad in 1642, Avas quietly sheltered under the despotism of Cromwell ; aud the convulsions of the republics of South America have been so numerous since their struggles began, thai civilized nations have ceased to count them. Historians recording events at a distance from the period of their occurrence, and ig- norant of the experienced evils Avhich led to iheir adoption, have often indulged in eloquent doclaniati(Ui against the corruption and debase- ment of those nations, such as Florence, Milan, Sienna, and Denmark, which have by common consent, and a solemn act, surrendered theit I MIKADEAU 217 |iberti;s to a sovereijrn prince. There is no- ihiiig. however, either extraortHiiary or ile- basing about it; they surrendered tlicir privi- leges, because they had never known what real freedom was ; they invoked the tranquillity of despotism, to avoid the experienced ills of anarchy; they chose the lesser, to avoid the greater evil. Democracy, admirable as a spring, and when duly tempered by the other cJements of society, is utterly destructive where it becomes predominant, or is deprived i( its regulating weight. The evils it pro- duces are so excessive, the suftering it occa- sions so dreadful, that society cannot exist under them, and the people take refuge in despair, in the surrender of all they have been contending for, to obtain that peace which they have sought for in vain amidst its stormy convulsions. The horrors of de- mocratic tyranny greatly exceed those either of regal or aristocratic oppression. History contains numerous examples of nations, who have lingered on for centuries, under the bowstring of the sultan, or the fetters of the feudal nobility ; but none in which democratic violence, wlien once fairlj' let loose, has not speedily brought about its own extirpation. But although there is little hope that the multitude, when once infected by the deadly contagion of dcmocracj', can right themselves, or be righted by others, by the utmost efforts of reason, argument, or eloquence, nature has in reserve one remedy of sovereign and uni- versal efficacy, which is as universally under- d, and as quick in its operation, as the ■n which rendered its application neces- sar}-. This Remedy is Scffeiiino. Every man cannot, indeed, understand political rea- soning; but every man can feel the want of a meal. The multitude may be insensible to the efforts of reason and eloquence; but they cannot !■ i.iain deaf to the dangers of murdrr ind cijijla^ration. These, the natural and unvarying attendants on democratic ascend- -■-, will as certainly in the end tame the • spirits of the people, as winter will suc- r ; but wh'-ther thi'V will do so in rve the national freedom, or up- liold thr national fortunes, is a very different, [ind far more doubtful question. It is seldom I hat the illumination of suffcrinp^ comes in to save the people from the despotism of word. It i.s in this particular that the superior ;trength .ind . (Tk- '-r.'-v ,.f free con>titution<«, .uch ;l^ Mr;' iMi ni; the fatal cncroach- . I't any possessed bv .'1 •. i^ to hn fiiind. 'I'h- o till" lii:,'li''r .11. I nii'tf n. . power of ri>iiil>ining to ii- i,i ui' •bstarirs are thrown in the w.n i-lii'}i >i'i ives il5 noblest altnbulc m the niv' ' • ■ • ■ -f- cnri ster which has started i.ito political activity; but they combine the brave, the enlightened, and the good, into a united phalanx, which, if it cannot singly resist the torrent, may, at least, arrest its fury, till the powers of nature come to its aid. Ti lo come at last with desperate and cl. in the uni- versal suffering, the lai-spread agony, the hope- less depression of the poor; but the danger is imminent, that before the change takes place the work of destruction may be completed, and the national liberties, deprived of the ark of the constitution, be doomed to perish under the futile attempts to reconstruct it. There never was a mistake so deplorable, as to imagine that it is possible, to give to any nation at once a new constitution; or to pre- serve the slightest guarantee for freedom, under institutions created at once by the utmost efforts of human wisdom. It is as im- possible at once to give a durable constitution to a nation as it is to give a healthful frame to an individual, without going through the previous changes of childhood and youth. " Governments," says Sir James Mackintosh, " are not framed after a model, but all their parts grow out of occasional acts, prompted by some urgent expedience, or some private interest, which in the course of time coalesce and harden into usage; and this bundle of usages is the object of respect, and the guide of conduct, long before it is imbodied, defined, or enforced in written laws. Government may be, in some degree, reduced to system, but it cannot flow from it. It is not like a machine, or a building, which may be con- structed entirely, and according to a previous plan, by the art and labour of man. It is better illustrated by comparison with vege- tables, or even animals, which may be, in a very high degree, improved by skill and care — which may be grievously injured by neglect, or destroyed by violence, but which cannot be produced by human contrivance. A govern- ment can, indeed, be no more than a mere draught or scheme of rule, when it is not com- posed of habits of (ibedience on the part of the people, and of an habitual exercise of cer- tain portions of authority by the individuals or bodies who constitute the !i power. These habits, like all otl, . i>nly be formed by n-peated nrtN; tliev iMiumt be sud- denly infuse , it is extrcii ' iiill. from tin- mere lofnwritie of govcinmeiit, to what it will prove in neiion. 'J'herc "■■vernments so bad that it is jusiih- rny them, and to trust lo the pri-ba- •y in.u ;i better govrrninent wil' ii r Mead. lint as the rise of a w. > '<•, »o trrrililr a prril if ttrrrr In i , I thf r alter the opinion of the many-hcidcd nion- 1 thinned by their inadcauale labour. It ir ; , n-- ■; M-.lrd th'' Hon of Commons of Fr.mrr,* whib* ihosr of v clerirv anJ nobles were left at their former amount. The elections in April, 1789, werr mndiict- ed With the utmost favour to the popular par- ■.7. No scrutiny of those rntiiled to vote look b)*c»*; after the few first days, every person • MIgnrl. 1 23. decently dn- allowed to vote, without asking any ■, .* M'hiMi the States-General met in May 6, 1789, the king and his minister, Neckar, wer« received with cold and dignified courtesy by the nobles and clergy, but rapturous applause by the Tiers Etat, who saw in them the au ihors of the prodigious addition wiiich the number and consequence of their order had received.-)- May 9. No sooner had the St.itcs-Gonera) proceeded to business, than tlu- Tifr- I'tai do» mandcd that the nobles and clei riiiil vote with them in one chnriibcr .' .i , ' '-'A unexampled in French history, and which it was foreseen would give them the complete ascendency, by reason of their numerical su- periority to those of both the other orders united.t May 10 to June 9. The nobles and clergy resisted for a short while this prodigious inno- vation, and insisted that, after the manner of all the States-General which had assembled in France from the foundation of the monarchy, the orders should sit and vole by separate chambers; and that this was more especially indispensable since the recent duplication of the Tiers Etat had given that body a numeri cal superiority over the two other orders taken together.^ June 17. The Tiers Etat declared themselves the National Assembly of France, a designa- tion, says Dumont, which indicated their in tcntion to usurp the whole sovereignty of "the state." ' , June 21. The king, terrified al the thoughts of a collision with the Commons, and thinking to put himself at the head of the movement, first persuaded, and at length, through the medium of Marshal Luxeml' ' ' the nobles to yield to this den., Etat.1 The nobles and clerg)' gradually yielded. On the 19ih June, 1789, one hundred and forlj- seven of the clergy joined the Tiers Etat, and on the 25th, the Duke of Orleans, with forty- seven of the nobles, also ami adhered to the opp mainder fimling their numl isly ,. .. 1 — I, and urged on by ""1? II, also joined the Ti ' 1 sat . thrm in oil' ' i that day (s ■ was comjileicd." On the '.i.ld June, I7sy, the km- h» Id a solemn meeting of the whole estates in one ^1 ' ■ d while he dcci ' ' luer r r the Tiers Ei.it • 'i.il, ((ranted by a king to hi.1 subjeris. All iho ' rts of the Revolution, says Mignci, were ■ i| bv that roval onlinanre.** July 13. The king onl ^'h« had been assetnblid in il. f-^ pital, to be wiihilrawn, and .«• ""^ .nt. ♦ M f Mifi.ri. I. 3f7. II I T l.irrpCrllo, Pr. Ill-' ft Ihld. I. 3. tMi:nrl. tn rr.nini. |i ■>• • • III. I «1 } 280 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. July 14. The Baslile taken, and all Paris in an insurrection. . July Ki. Tlie king; appointed Lafayette com- mandi-r of the National Guard, and Bailly, the president of the Assembly, mayor of Paris. July 17. The king visited Paris in the midst of a mob of 200,000 revolutionary democrats. Aug. 4. The whole feudal rights, including tithes, abandoned in one nigiit by the nobility, on the motion of the Duke de Noailles. Aug. 13. Decree of the Assembly declaring all ecclesiastical estates national property. Aug. 20. The Declaration of the Rights of Man issued. Aug. 23. Freedom of religious opinions pro- claimed. Aug. 24. The unlimited freedom of the press established. Aug. 25. Dreadful disturbances in Paris on account of famine. Sept. 13. A new decree on account of the extreme suffering at Paris. Oct. 5. Versailles invaded by a clamorous mob. The king and queen nearly murdered, and brought captives by a furious mob to Pa- ris. Nov. 2. Decree passed, on the motion of the Bishop of Autun, for the confiscation and dis- posal of all ecclesiastical property. Feb. 24, 1790. Titles of honour abolished. Feb. 26. New division of the kingdom into departments ; and all appointments, civil and militar}', vested in the people. March 17. Sale of 400 millions of the na- tional domains authorized, and assignats, bear- ing a forced circulation, issued, to supply the immense deficiency of the revenue.* It is unnecessary to go farther. Here it ap- pears, that within two months of the meeting of the States-General, the union of the orders in one chamber, in other words, the annihilation of the House of Peers, was eflected, the feudal rights abolished, and the entire sovereignty vested in the National Assembly. In three months, the church property was confiscated, the Rights of Man published, titles annihilated, and the unlimited freedom of the press pro- claimed. In five months, the king and royal family were brought prisoners to Paris. In SIX moH^/is, the distress naturally consequent on these convulsions had attracted the constant attention of the Assembly, and spread the ut- most misery among the people ; and in ten month, the total failure of the revenue had rendered the sale of church property, and the issuing of assignats bearing a forced circula- tion, necessary, which it is well known soon «wallo\v:- travagant expectations of the different classes who supportc'-l their favourite innovations: "The house of the Duke de Rochefoucauld" distinguished by its simplicity, the purity of i^ manners, and the independence of its princi- ples, assembled all those members of the n i- bility who supported the people, the double re- presentation of the Tiers Etat, the vote per ra- pita, the abandonment of all privileges, and the like. Condorcet, Dupont, Lafayette, the Didie de Liancourt, were the chief persons of that society. Their ruling passion was to create for Frnnre n new constitution. Such of the nobility and princes as wished to preserve the ancient * Revolution Fran^alse; 13^ MIRABKAU. S91 coH*titiition of the Stalcs-Gcncrnl, (ormcil the aris- locratic party, against which the public in- ' dignation was so general; but nlihi>n:;h much I noise was made about thcin, their numbers I were inconsiderable. The bulk of the nation I saw only in the Stales-General the ntcnns of di- ^ niinis-'.im:; the la.ns ; the fundholders, so often exposed to the consequences of a violation of public faith, considered them as an imunnblc \ rampitrt ag:aiuft nalional hnnkruplnj. The defi- ( cit had made them tremble. They were on the point y.^i ruin ; and they embraced with warmth the hope of giving to the revenues of the state a secure foundation. These ideas were utterly inconsistent with each other. The nohilily had III /An'r bosotn a democratic as well as an aristo- • cratic party. The clergy ircrc divided in the same I manner, and so were the commons. No words can convey an idea of the confusion of ideas, the extravagant expectations, the hopes and passions of all parties. You would imagine the world was on the day after the creation." — Pp. 37, 38. We have seen that the clergy, by their join- ing the Tiers Etat, first gave them a decided superiority over the other orders, and vested '"n their hands omnipotent power, by compel- hng the nobles to sit and vote with them in an assembly where they were numerically infe- rior to the popular parlj-. The return they met with in a few months was, a decree confs- eating all their properly to the service of the rtatc. With bitter and unavailing anguish did they then look back to their insane conduct in so strongly fanning a flame of which they were soon to be the victims. Dumont gives the fol- [lowing striking account of the feelings of one 'of their reforming bishops, when the tempest ihey had raised reached their own doors. "The Bishop of Charlres was one of the bi- shops who were attached to the popular party; Jiat is to say, he was a supporter of the union )f the orders, of the vote by head, and the new constitution. He was by no means a man of iliiical turn, nor of any depth of understand- ; but he had so much candour and good !i that he divtrn^ted no one; he never ima- '•d that the Tiers Et.it could have any other lesign but to reform the existing abuses, and lo the good which appeared so easy a matter o all the world. A slrang'T to everv species )f I in his ■• fol- <.' ':•• than li. , and n'hat he sincerely believed to be lor the public rood. His religion was like his politics ; he ras benevolent, tolerant, .tnd sincerely re- oiced til sre the V ;% rxi-mptnl fnun rvcry sp'cics of ■ '. lIi* was well iware that the clerpy wmilil be calbd on to naWc great sacrifices; but never nniiripatrd h.at he was destined to l>c the victim (>( the Re- ohitiiin. I saw him at the ti' ' ' ' vholc goods iif th'" rhureh wrp ional property, with tm -i iiR his old domestics, t :■• , nansion, selling his m <'t% to | ischarge his d<'bt<;. H- i'> i-nrfh- •curing his scirr^-w into m Hi^ r^ 'rets wcf" H'l I' r h in >•'!'. CCiised hinis'll l^r li.r. iiii,' • deceived, and embraced the party ol the | Tiers Etat, which violated, when iriiimphan^ all the engai;emr-ntb wlurh it had made when in a state of weakness. How grievous it musi have been to a man of pood principles to have contributed to the success of so unjust a party I Yet never man had less reason, morally speakr ing. to reproach himself." — Pp. 6fi. f,7. This spoliation of the clergy has already commenced in this countr>-. even before the great democratic measure of Reform is carried. As usual also, the supporters of the popular parly are likely to be its first victims. We all recollect the decided part which Lord Milton took in supporting the Reform Bill, and the long and obstinate conflict he maintained with Mr. Cartwright, and the Conservative party in Northamptonshire, at the last election. Well, he gained his point, and he is now be^-inning to taste its fruits. Let us hear the proclama- tion which he has Jately placarded over all his extensive estates in the county of Wicklow — " Grosrcnor Place, March 10. "I was in hopes that the inhabitants of our part of the country had too deep' sense of the importance of respecting the rights of property, and of obeying the laws, to permit them to con- template what I can call by no other name than a scheme nf spoliation and robhcry. It seems that the occupier proposes to withhold payment of lithe, &c. ; hut let me ask, what is it that en- titles the occupier himself to the land which he occupies 1 Is it not the law which sanctions the lease by which he holds it 7 The law gives him a right to the cattle which he rears on his land, to the plough with which he cultivates it, and to the car in which he carries his produce to the market; the law also gives him his right to nine-tenths of the produce of his land, but the same law assigns the other tenth to another person. In this distribution of the produce of the land, there is no injustice, becau-ie the te- nant was perfectly aware of it when he entered upon his land; but in any forcible change of this distribution there would l»c great injustice, because it irould be a Irniiffcr of j i int person to nno'her trilhoul an cip' iter irordf, it iroiibl be a robbrrif. The (n'«ii|'iiT must also remember that the rent he pays to the landlord is calcniatcd upon the principle of his receiving only nine-tenths of the produce — if he were entitled to the r. .Ml our land is v,i- lueil lo the tenants upon this principle; but if tithes, Ac, arc swept awav without an p." There can be no doubt that the prineiplps here laid down by LonI Milton are well found ed; but did it never occur lo his |onl>hip ihni '■m^'what in' of i: :ii Ilill! If t^ .-t, " that till- transfer of pi • n to anothi-r withf)iit an ■- , v." what nrf we say of the di*^' i? the ■" ' !•• • in I'nrl ' 'he worih V ••''t- tlif K.Imiiii hr • holders II, ' ' ■'-r- dcn, ti 19 to be recollected, have declared iha". I 222 ALISOx\'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. these rights "are a property as well as a trust."* They stand, therefore, on the same foundation as Lonl Filzwilliam's right to his Irish tithes. No more injustice is done by confiscating the one than the other. But this is just an in- stance how clear-sighted men are to the " rob- bery" of revolutionary measures when they approach their own door, and how extremely blind when it touches upon the freeholds of others. Lord Milton was a keen supporter of schedule A, and disregarded the exclamations against '' robbery and spoliation," which were so loudly made by the able and intrepid Con- servative band in the House of Commons. Did his lordship ever imagine that the system of spoliation was to stop short at the freehold corporations, or the boroughs of Tory Peers 1 He will learn to his cost that the radicals can find as good plunder in the estates of the Whig as the Conservative nobility. But when the day of reckoning comes, he cannot plead the excuse of the honest and benevolent Bishop of Charlres. He was well forewarned of the con- sequences ; the example of France was before his eyes, and it was clearly pointed out to his attention ; but he obstinately rushed forward in the insane career of innovation, which, almost under his own eyes, had swallowed up all the reforming nobility and clergy of that unhappy kingdom. The vast importance of u-nrrh in revolution- ary convulsions, of which Napoleon was so well aware when he said that "it was by epi- thets that you govern mankind," appears in the account given b)^ this able and impartial writer on the designation which the Tiers Etat chose for themselves before their union with the other orders. " The people of Versailles openly insulted in the streets and at the gates of the Assembly those whom they called Aristocrats. The power of that word becam.e magical, as is always the case with party epithets. What astonishes me is, that there was no contrar)'' denomination fixed on by the opposite party. They were called the Nation, The effects of these two words, when constantly opposed to each othcK'' may readily be conceiv^ed. "Though the Commons had already become sensible of their power, there were many opi- nions on the way in which it should be exerted, and the name to be given to the Assembly. They had not as yet all the audacity which they have since evinced ; but the men Avho looked into futurity clearly saw that this de- tennination would have been of the most im- portant consequences. To declare themselves theNational Assembly was to count for nothing the king, the noblesse, and the clergy; it was equivalent to a declaration of civil war, if the government had had sufficient vigour to make any resistance. To declare themselves the Assembly of the Commons, was to express what undoubtedly was the fact, but what would not have answered the purpose of compelling the clergy and nobles to join them. Many de- nominations were proposed which were neither the one nor the other of these ; for every one as yet was desirous to conceal his ultimate pre- • In debate on Reform Bill, Oct. 8, 1831. tensions; and even Sieyes, who rejected everj thing which tended to preserve the distinction of orders, did not venture to table the expres- sion, National Assemblj'. It was hazarded for the first time by a deputy named Le Grand: there was an immediate call for the vote, and it was carried by a majority of 500 to 80 voices."— Pp. 73, 74. This is the never-failing device of the demo- cratic party in all ages. Trusting to the ma^ jority of mere numbers on their side, thej invariably represent themselves as the wholt nation, and the friends of the constitution as a mere fragment, utterly unworthy of consider- ation or regard. "Who are the Tiers Etat?' said the Abbe Sieyes. "They are the French nation, miiws 150,000 privileged individuals."— " Who are the Reformers ]" says the Times « They are 24,000,000 of men, minus 200 ba roughmongers." By such false sweeping as sertions as these, are men's eyes blinded no only to what is honourable, but to what is saf< and practicable. By this single device of call ing the usurping Commons the National As' sembly, the friends of order were deterred fron entering into a struggle with vrhat was called and therefore esteemed, the national will; ant many opportunities of stemming the torrent which, as Dumont shows, afterwarr's arose irrecoverably neglected. Of the fatal weakness which attended th( famous sitting of the 23d June, 1789, whei Louis made such prodigious concessions tt his subjects, without taking at the same timi any steps to make the royal authorit}' respected the opinion of Dumont is as follows : — " Neckar had intended by these concession: to put democracy into the royal hands : but they hai the effect of putting the aristocracy under the dcs potism of the people. We must not consider tha royal sitting in itself alone. Viewed in thi: light, it contained the 7}iost extensive concession that ever monarch made to his people. Thev M"ould at any other time, have excited the most live'' gratitude. Is a prince powerful] Every thi that he gives is a gift, every thing that he doe not resume is a favour. Is he weak ? ever thing that he concedes is considered as a debt every thing that he refuses, as an act of in justice. "The Commons had now set their hear upon being the National Assembl}'. Ever tiling which did not amount to that was nothin; in their estimation. But to hold a Bed of Jus tice, annul the decrees of the Commons, mat a great noise without having even foreseen an; resistance, or taken a single precaution forth- morrow, without having taken any steps h prepare a party in the Assembly, was an ac of madness, and from it may be dated the nw of the monarchy. Nothing can be more dan gerous than to drive a Aveak prince to acts c vigour M-hich he is unable to sustain ; for whei he has exhausted the terrors of words he ha no other resource ; the authority of the thron' has been lowered, and the people have dis covered the secret of their monarch's M'eak ncss."— P. 87. The Reformers in this countrj' say, that thcs' immense concessions of Louis failed in tliei effect of calming the popular efferve.icence MIRADEAU. I Mcanse they came too hUt. It is tliiricult to ■ say wh.1t they call toon enouzh, when it is rcc ' that these concessions were made ! b(i .itliai li'id cfcnvtrificd their jinirem ; he- I fore a single decreeof the Assembly had passed, I at the very opening of their sittings ; and when > all their proceedings up to that hour had been 1 an ille;:;.il alt'-nipt to centre in themselves all I the pi'wiM^ t i^Mvernment. But, in truth, what I rendered that solitarj' act of vigour so disas- ; trous was, that it was totally unsupported; that I no measures were simultaneously taken to make the royal authority respected; that the throne was worsted from its own want of fore- sisht in the very first contest with the Com- mons, and above all, that the army betrayed their > .sovereign and rendered resistance impossible, by joining the rebels to his government. The National Assembly, like every other body which commits itself to the gale of popu- lar applause, experienced the utmost disquie- tude at the thoughts of punishing any of the excesses of thefr popular supporters. How exactly is the following description applicable to all times and nations ! " The disorders which were prolonged in the [provinces, the massacres which stained the streets of Paris, induced many estimable per- sons to propose an address of the Assembly, condemnatory of such proceedings to the peo- Iplc. The Assembly, however, was so appre- jhcnsive of offending the multitude, that they [regarded as a snare every motion tending to rc- prtu the disorders, or centure the popular excesses. Secret distrust and disquietude was at the bottom of every heart. They had triumphed by means of the people, and they could not venture to show themselves severe towards iihem; on the contrar)', though they frequently pcclared, in the preambles of their decrees, Lhat th<'y wpro profoundly afflicted at the burn- ' of ih'- ' \ and the insults to the no- •'y, ''"■!/ ' . ' heart at the propagation of I terror irhith thry rci^ardcd ai indifptnnabk to thrir •' They had reduced themselves to the v of fearine the noblesse, or being ■y .. . . ■ I - •icn's on the constituted authorities, and .,c <■•.-. nn-^mpnt to license. Respect for jhe ex' wcr was nothint; butwordn of '.:e; ;i!. 1 ;:i iriilh, whf^n the ni^ wn rev.ili'il ih'* si-rrct of lii c Assembly, which rememherfil well its uw error?", was not displcas'-d •'■ 't f'-ar h.i I baogrd sides. If you arc ly powrr- ul to ran=;f V" : ' ' ' ' ' •♦"ople, V'lM u . . 7ith rm but a small proportion of mankind; and for one whose eyes are opened by the commencement of such deeds of horror, ten will be so much overawed, as to lose all power of actir.g in obedience to the newly awakened and better feelings of his mind. "Intimidation," as Lord Brougham has well observed, "is the never-failing resource of the partisans of revolution in all ages. Merc popw larity is atjirst the instniwcnt hy which this unsteady legislature is governed : but when it becomes ap- parent that whoever can obtain the direction or command of it must possess the whole author- ity of the state, parties become less scrupulous about the means they employ for that purpose, and soon find out that violence and terror arc infinitely more effectual and erpcdilious than persuasion and eloquence. Encouraged by this state of affairs, the most daring, unprincipled, and profligate, proceed to seize upon the defenceless legisla- ture, and, driving all their antagonists before them by violence or intimidation, enter without opposition upon the supreme functions of go vernment. The arms, however, by which they had been victorious, are speedily turned against themselves, and those who are envious of their success, or ambitious of their distinction, easily find means to excite discontents among the multitude, and to employ them in pulling down the very individuals whom they had so recently elevated. This disposal of the legislature then becomes a prize to be fought for in the clubs and societies of a corrupted mi^tropoljl:, and the institution of a national r' has no other effect than that of la\ rnment open to lawless force and flagitious audacity. It was in this manner that, from th ■ 'f a natural and rfficienl ari.ilocracif to Iht nal I ra- vagance, and tell a prey lolaciion; lhat the Institution itself became a source of public misery and disorder, and converted a civilized ' ■ 'craey, How , here so weil ilescribed, ,, 1 ; ..:.ie8! "Take this bill or anarchy," says Mr. Macnuley. — " Lonl (iny," ' 'f s, "has t ' ' -iv into . that h' rv the luionn liiil or iiiriir tip > r>f a revolution."}- Hdw exacii. . rcer of democratic insanity and revoluii>>narv ainbi* tion t'l " - ' r Dii .1 lead- He gives the following iir the icvolt of ac.indid an the people, in a question which interests ' excites the public ambition. But we exfci that truth will be spoken by the represein tives of the people, as against the interests i the owner of the mound ; and by the repr sentatives of the mound, as against the pa sions of the people ; and that thus, between ll MIRAUEAU. inn two, the language of reason will be raised on every subject, aiul that fatal bias \he public raind prevented, which arises from one set of idoctrines and principles bein? alone presented |to ihcir consideration. In the superior fear- ness and vigour of the language of the 1 i.servative party in the House of Lords, to juiiat is exhibited in the House of Commons, .11 the Reform question, is to be found decisive ■ence of the truth of these principles, and .in ir application to this country and this age. [ Of the fatal 4ih August, " the' St. Barihelemy of properties," as it was well styled by Kivaroj, and its ruinous consequences upon the puldic uelfarc. we have the following striking and graphic account: — "Never was such an undertaking accom- ' ~'ied in so short a time. That which would .■i required a year of care, meditation, and jiebatc, was proposed, deliberated on, and voted py acclamation. I know not how many laws lorere decreed in that one sitting; the abolition jjf feudal rights, of the tithes, of provincial pri- j.-ilcges; three articles, which of themselves [•mbraced a complete system of jurisprudence ind politics, with ten or twelve others, were ecided in less time than would be required in England for the first reading of a bill of ordi- lar)' importance. They began with a report m the disorders of the provinces, chateaux iurot, troops of banditti Avho attacked the obles and ravaged the fields. The Duke ".\guillon, the Duke de Noailles, and several [thers of the democratic part of the nobilit)', fter the most disastrous pictures of these alamities, exclaimed that nothing but a great ct of generosity could calm the people, and lat it was high time to abandon their odious rivileges, and let the people taste the full cnefits of the Revolution. An indescribable tfervescence seized upon the Assembly. Iverj' one proposed sacrifice: every one laid jme offering on the altar of their country, reposing either to denude themselves or de- ade others; no time was allowed for rertec- on, objection, or argument; a sentimental intagion seized every heart. That rennncia- on of privileges, that abandonni<'nl of so lany rights burdensome to the people, these luUiplied sacrifices, had an air of magnaniin- y which withdrew the attention from the fatal ecipilance with which they were inaile. I iw on that night many good and worthy 'itics who literally wept for joy at .seeing ' work of regeneration advance so rapidly, ImI at feeling themselves every instant carried of enthusiasm so far Ixyond their hopes. The renuneiatinn of the • lieges of provinces was made by their re- II v.. representatives ; those of IJriitany had I 1 to defend them, and therefore they • more embarrassed than the rest; but , nrd away by the general enthusiasm, they jivanred in a body, and deelan-d in n Imdy, ht ihey would use their utmost r|f<>rls with ; T constituents to obtain the rrniincintion their privileges. That great and yi;- ' , raiion was necessary to confer pii j.ity upon a monarchy which had I l^siveiy farmed by the unmn of in i iii:iiiit'>l with their own strength, ami iiiii)ress them with the conviction that all their outrai;<'s against the nobility would not only not bo punished, but actually rewardeil. .\gain I sny, everv thing which is done from fear fails in .i i^h- ing its object; Iboie irhont ymt r.rpni i by rnnrtiitumn, only rrdniililt Hi confulenrt nnii auda- city."— V p. IKi— l'J9. Huch is the conclusion of this enlightened French Uefurmer, as to the eonse(|uences of the iiinovalioiis and concessions, in |Momoiing which he took so large a share, and which it was then confitlently expected, would not only pacify the people but rcpenernle the mon- archy, and commence a new era in the history of the world. These opinions rnmmg from the author «d"lhe l{ii,'hts of Man, (b 'oi of Mirabeaii, the fellow-labomer < m, .ihoiild, if any thing can, open the • nr ■ ■ : rnthusiasis, who nr- -■■ «■ in • the necessity of C' "Y lloiii '•» "let 1 It IS on this question of the cUecu to be cs 226 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. pected from concession to public clamour, thai the wliole question of Keform hinges. The supportefs of the bill in both Houses have abandoned every other argument. "Pass this bill, or anarchy will ensue," is their sole princi- ple of action. IJut what says Dumont, taught by the errors of the Constituent Assembly ? "Pass this bill, and anarchy tcnll ensue." " Whatever- is done," says he, " from fear, fails in its object ; those whom you expect to disarm by conces- sion, redouble in confidence and audacity." This is the true principle; the principle con- firmed by universal experience, and yet the Reformers shut their e}'es to its application. The events wl^icli have occurred in this age are so decisive on this subject, that nothing more convincing could be imagined, if a voice from the dead were to proclaim its truth. Concession, as Dumont tells us, and as every one acquainted with history knows, was tried by the French government and Assembly, in the hope of calming the people, and arresting the Revolution. The monarch, at the opening of the States-General, made " greater conces- sions than ever king made to his people ;" the nobles abandoned, on their own motion, in one night, all their rights ; and what was the con- sequence ■? The revolutionary fervour was urged into a fury ; the torrent became a cata- ract, and horrors unparalleled in the history of the world ensued. Resistance to popular ambition, a firm op- position to the cry for reform, was at the same period, under a lion-hearted king and an in- trepid minister, adopted in the midst of the greatest dangers by the British government. What was the consequence 1 Universal tran- quillity — forty years of unexampled prosperity — the triumph of Trafalgar — the conquest of Waterloo. Conciliation and concession, in obedience, and with the professed design of healing the disturbances of that unhappy land, were next tried in Ireland. Universal tranquillity, con- tentment, and happiness, were promised from the great healing measure of emancipation. What has been the consequence] Disturb- ances, massacres, discord, practised sedition, threatened rebellion, which have made the old times of Protestant rule be regretted. Conciliation and concession were again put in practice by the Whig Administration of England. What was the result 1 Perils great- er than assailed the monarchy from all the might of Napoleon; dissension, conflagration, and popular violence, unexampled since the great rebellion; a falling income and an in- creasing expenditure; the (lames of a servile war in Jamaica ; and general distress unequal- led since the accession of the House of Bruns- wick. The character of Mirabeau, both as a writer and orator, and an individual, is sketched with no ordinary power by tiiis author, probably better qualified than any man in existence to portray it with accuracy : — "Mirabeau had witJiin his breast a sense of the force of his mind, which sustained his courage in situations which would have crush- ed a person of ordinary character: his imagi- natior. loved the vast; his mind seized the gigantic; his taste wis natural, and had beci cultivated by the study ol' the classical authors He knew little ; but no one could make a bet ter use of what he had acquired. During thi whirlwind of his stormy life he had little lei sure for study; but in his prison of Vincenne; he had read extensively, and improved his styli by translations, as well as extensive collection, from the writings of great orators. He ha little confidence in the extent of his eruditicti but his eloquent and impassioned soul animal ed every feature of his countenance when h was moved, and nothing was easier than i inflame his imagination. From his youth up wards he had accustomed himself to the dis cussion of the great questions of erudition an government, but he was not calculated to got the bottom of them. The labour of investiga tion was not adapted to his powers ; he had to much warmth and vehemence of dispositio: for laborious application ; his mind proceede by leaps and bounds, but sometimes they wer prodigious. His style abounded in vigorou expressions, of which he had made a partici lar study. " If we consider him as an author, we mu; recollect that all his Avritings, without on single exception, were pieces of Mosaic, i which his fellow-labourers had at least as larg. a share as himself, but he had the faculty o: giving additional eclat to their labours, b throwing in here and there original expre;.' sions, or apostrophes, full of fire and eli quencc. It is a peculiar talent, to be ablei: this manner to disinter obscure ability, intrui: to each the department for which he is fitteo and induce them all to labour at the work o' which he alone is to reap the glory. " As a political orator, he was in some n spects gifted with the very highest talents- quick eye, a sure tact, the art of discovering; once the true disposition of the assembly b Avas addressing, and applying all the force o his mind to overcome the point of resistant without weakening it by the discussion minor topics. No one knew better how . strike with a single word, or hit his mark wit perfect precision; and frequently he thi carried ivith him the general opinion, eith( by a happy insinuation, or a stroke which ii timidated his adversaries. In the tribune b was immovable. The waves of faction rolle around Avithout shaking him, and he wa master of his passions in the midst of the u most vehemence of opposition. But what h wanted as a political orator, M'as the art of di cussion on the topics on which he enlarge He could jiot embrace a long series of pre and reasonings, and was unable to refute i logical or convincing manner. He was, i consequence, often obliged to abandon il most important motions, when hard pre^ by his adversaries, from pure inability to i fute their arguments. He embraced too miif and reflected loo little. He plunged into a di course made for him on a subject on which 1 had never reflected, and on which he had bee at no pains to master the facts ; and he wa in consequence, greatl}'^ inferior in that partici lar to the alhletrc who exhibit their powers 1 the British parliament."— P. 277. MIRADEAU. m ' What Ifd to the French Revolution ! This Uneslion will be asked and discussed, with all rhe anxiety it deserves, to the end of the world. —Let us hear Dumnnton the subject. "No event ever interested Europe so much — the meeting of the Stales-General. There no enlightened man who did not found the ' hopes upon that public slrugsle of •s with the lights of the age, and who jlid not believe that a new moral and political *-orld was about to issue from the chaos. The >tu)in of hope was so strong, that all faults vere pardoned, all misfortunes were represent- •d only as accident ; in spile of all the calami- les which it induced, the balance leaned always owards the Constituent Assembly. — It was the truffgle of humanity with despotism. "The States-General, six weeks afler their onvocation, was no longer the S^lates-General, >ut the National Assembly. Its first calamity ras to have owed its new title to a revolution ; hat is to say, to a vita! change in its power, ;s essence, its name, and its means of authority. kccording to the constitution, the commons lid have acted in conjunction with the OS, the clergy, and the king. But the com- lons, in the very outset, subjugated the noblen. If rlersy, and the king. It was in that, that the '(tvhitioii consisted. " Reasoning without end has taken place on le causes of the Revohilion ; there is but one, 1 my opinion, to which the whole is to be as- ribed; and that is, the rharactcr of the king. ut a king of character and firmness in the place ' Lfiuis XVI., and no revolution would have en- itd. His whole reign was a preparation for . There was not a single epoch, during the hole Constituent Assembly, in which the mg, if he could only have changed his f;ha- ictcr, mit'ht not have re-established his au- lorily, and created a mixed constitution far ore solid and stable than its ancient mon- •' hy. His indecision, his weakness, his half scls, his want of foresight, ruined every •ig. The inferior causes which have con- irr«»(1 were nolhinir hut the neressarv consc- ^' 1 the l).«- '• mtriguers, the factious insoleni. the ; " -■•"•••-: ■' 1 men are inii" • ' ' !»• • CO unrewai itwans, ir.iwn I ; th" T the I. would never r li.ivi: a|>|>«ai«'rts have been unavailing to re- store animation. It is now as impossible to give genuine freedom, that is complete protec- tion to all classes, to France, as it is to restore the vital spark to a lifeless body by the convul- sions of electricity. The balance of interests, the protecting classes, arc destroyed : nothing remains but the populace and the cnveniment: .\siatic has Micrredi-tl it) Eiimpi-au civiliza- tion : and, instead of the long life of modern ' ' m, the brief tempests of anarchy, and 'he v'ht of despotism, arc its fate. I Iw '" ^ 'ily, however, had ibf e.\. .on: they were en- ing on ail untrodden In-ld: the consequence ii..;r K-tioris were unknown: enthusiasm !>l«» as that of the theatre urged on Great n-forms requiretl to be ma> ii.niirhly nobiliiy, con.sumed hy i il vires, weakened by no foreisn ■> ' ^'- > '• long reformers ot ihe ncighlwuring kingdnn 228 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. who roused passions as impetuous, proposed changes as sweeping, were actuated by ambi- tion as perilous, as that which, under their own eyes, had torn civilization to pieces in its bleed- ing dominion 1 What shall we say to those who did this in the state where freedom had existed longer, and was at their accession more unfettered than in any other country that ever existed ; where prosperity unexampled existed, and virtue uncorrupted was to be found, and glory unparalleled had been won ? Who ad A^entured on a course which threatened to tear in pieces the country of Milton and Bacon, of Scott and Newton, of Nelson and Wellington! History will judge their conduct : no tumultu- ous mobs will drown it5 voice : from its deci- sion there will be no appeal, and its will be the voice of ages. BULWER'S ATHENS.* It is a remarkable fact, that so numerous and pregnant are the proofs afforded by history in all ages, of the universal and irremediable evils of democratic ascendency, that there is hardly an historical writer of any note, in any country or period of the world, who has not concurred in condemning it as the most dan- gerous form of government, and the most fatal enemy of that freedom which it professes to support. In the classical writers, indeed, are to be found numerous and impassioned, as well as perfectly just eulogies on the ennobling effects of civil liberty ; but it is liberty, as con- tradistinguished from slavery, which is the ob- ject of their encomium : and none felt so strong- ly, or have expressed so forcibly, the pernicious tendency of unbridled democracy to undermine and destroy the civil freedom and general pro- tection of all classes, which is unquestionably the first of human blessings. Thucydides, whose profound mind was forcibly attracted by the varied operations of the aristocratic and democratic factions, which in his age distract- ed Greece, and whose conflict forms the sub- ject of his immortal work, has told us, that " in- variably in civil contests it was found at Athens that the worst and most abandoned public characters obtained the ascendency." Aristotle has condensed in six words the ever- lasting characteristic of democratic govern- ment Tt/TT^l/ TCeV TU^AVVlSuV TiKiUTAlii il S>l/U!>y.PU.TIa. Sallust has pointed to the " Egestas cupida no- varum rerum," as the most prolific source of the evils which first undermined, and at last overthrew the solid foundations of Roman liberty; and left in his Catiline conspiracy a picture of the demagogue, so just and true in all its touches, that in every age it has the air of having been drawn from the existing popu- lar idol; and the phrase "Alieni appetens, sui profusus," has passed into a proverbial charac- teristic of that mixture of rapacity and insol- vency which ever forms the basis of the cha- racters who attain to democratic ascendency. Livy, amidst the majestic and heart-stirring narrative of Roman victories, never loses an opportunity of throwing in a reflection on the mingled instability and tyranny of popular as- semblies; and all the experience of the woful tyranny which the triumph of democracy under Cassar brought upon the Roman common- ♦ Athens, its Rise and Fall. By E. L. Bulwer, Esq. Baunders and OUev : London, 1837. Blackwood's Maga- iine, July, 18.37. wealth, and the leaden chains of the centralized government of his successors, has not blinded the far-seeing sagacity of Tacitus to the origin of all these evils in the wide-spread force of popular wickedness and folly, and the fatal overthrow of the long established sway of the Senate by the military talents and consummate address of the first emperor of the world. In modern times the same striking charac- teristic of all the greatest observers of human events is equally conspicuous. Five hundred years ago Machiavel deduced from a careful retrospect of Roman history, not less than the experience of the Republican States with which he was surrounded, the clearest views of the enormous perils of unbridled democracy: and he has left in his Discourses on Livy and " Principe," maxims of government essentially adverse to democratic establishments, which, in depth of thought and justice of observation, have never been surpassed. Bacon clearly perc&ived, even amidst all the servility of the nation, and tyranny of the government of Eng- land under the Tudor princes, the opposite dangers of republican rule, and his celebrated apophthegm, that political changes, to be safe, " should resemble those of nature, which albeit the greatest in the end, are imperceptible in their progress," has passed into a consuetudi- nary maxim, to which, to the end of the world, the wise will never cease to refer, and against which the rash and reckless Avill never cease to chafe. The profound mind of Hume, it is well known, beheld the long and varied story of England's existence with perhaps too great a bias in favour of monarchical institutions ; and Gibbon, even amidst the long series of calamities which accumulated round the sink- ing fortunes of the empire, has sufficiently evinced his strong sense of the impracticable nature, and tyrannic tendency of democratic institutions.* Sir James Mackintosh, in his maturer years, strongly supported the same sound and rational principles ; and all the fer- vour and energy of the youthful author of the Vindicia GalUccE could not blind his better in- formed judgment later in life, to the frightful dangers of democratic ascendency, and the ul- timate conclusion "that the only government which offers a rational prospect of establishing or preserving freedom, is that where the power *In his letters and and miscellaneous works, hii opinions on this subject are clearly e.\pressed. , BULWER'S ATHENS. 2i9 cf directing affairs is vested in the aristocratic interests, under the perpetual safeguard of po- pular watchfulness."* Burke, almost forgot- ten as a champion of Whig doctrines in the earlier part of his career, stands forth in im- perishable lustre as the giant supporter of conservative principles in the zenith of his in- tellect. Pitt has told us that "democracy is not the government of the few by the many, but the many by the few, with this addition, that the few who are thus raised to power are the most dangerous and worthless of tiie com- munity;" and Fox, who spent his life in sup- porting liberal principles, with his dying breath bequeathed to his successors a perpetual strug- gle with the gigantic power which had risen out of its spirit, and imbodied its desires. Nor is France behind England in the same profound and far-seeing views of human af- fairs. Napoleon, elevated on the wave, and supported by the passions of the Revolution, conceived himself, as he himself told, to be the commissioned hand of Heaven lo chastise its crimes and extinguish its atrocity. Madam de Stael, albeit passionately devoted to the me- mory of her father, the parent of the Revolution, and the author of the French Reform Bill, has yet devoted the maturity of her intellect to il- lustrate the superior advantages which the mixed form, of government established in Eng- land afforded ; and in her Treatise on the French Revolution, supported with equal wis- dom and eloquence the conservative princi- ples, in which all minds of a certain elevation in ev-'ery age have concurred : while Chateau- briand, the illustrious relic of feudal grandeur, and the graphic painter of modern suffering, has arrived, from the experience of his varied and interesting existence, at the same lofty and ennobling conclusions ; and M. de Toqueville, the worthy conclusion to such a line of great- ness, has portrayed, amidst the most impartial survey of American equality, seeds in the un- disguised " tyranny of the majority," of the eventual and speedy destruction of civil li- berty. These enemies of democracy in every age. have been led to these conclusions, /wsi because they were the steeidicst friends of freedom. They deprecated and resisted the unbridled sway of the people, because they saw clearly that it was utterly destructive to their real and dura- ble interests; that it permitted that sacred fire which, duly restrained and repressed, is the fountain of all greatness, whether in nations or individuals, to waste itself in pernicious flames, or expand into ruinous conflagration. They supported the establishment of Conser- vative checks on popular extravagance, be- cause they perceived from experience, and had learned from history, that the gift of unbridled power is fatal to its possessors, and that least of all is it tolerable where the responsibility, the sole check upon its excesses, is destroyed by the number among whom it is divided. They advocated a mixed form of government, because they saw clearly, lliat under such, and such only, had the blessings of freedom in any »ge been enjoyed for any length of time by the • Mackintosh's Memoirs, I. 17L people. They were fully aware that demo- cratic energy has, in every age, been th« mainspring of human improvement; but they were not less aware, that this spring is one of such strength and power, that if not duly loaded, it immediately tears the machine to pieces. They admired and cherished the warmth of the fire, but they were not so blinded by its advantages, as to permit it to escape its iron bars, and wrap the house in flames; they enjoyed the vigour of the horses which whirled the chariot along; but they were not so insane as to cast the charioteer from his seat, and allow their strength and energy to overturn and destroy the vehicle : they acknowledged with gratitude the genial w^armth of the central heat, which clothed the sides of the volcano with luxuriant fruits; but they looked to either hand, and beheld in the black furrow of desolation the track of the burning lava which had issued from its sum- mit when it escaped its barriers, and filled the heavens with an eruption. Nothing daunted by this long and majestic array of authority against him, Mr. Bulwer has taken the field in two octavo volumes, in order to illustrate the beneficial effect of re- publican institutions upon social greatness and national prosperity. He has selected for his subject the Athenian democracy — the eye of Greece — the cradle of history, tragedy, and the fine arts ; the spot in the world where, in the narrowest limits, achievements the most mighty have been won, and genius the most immortal has been developed. He con- ceived, doubtless, that in Attica at least the extraordinary results of democratic agency could not be disputed; the Roman victories might be traced to the wisdom of the senate ; the Swiss patriotism to the simplicity of its mountains ; the prosperity of Holland lo the protection of canals, or the prudence of its burgomasters; the endurance of America to the boundless vent afforded by its back settle- ments ; but in Athens none of these peculiari- ties existed, and there the brilliant results of J)opular rule and long established self-govern- ment were set forth in imperishable colours. We rejoice he has made the attempt; we anti- cipate nothing but good to tlie conservative cause from his efforts. It is a common saying among lawyers, that falsehood may be exposed in a witness by cross-examination; but that truth only comes out the more clearly from all the efforts which are made for its confusion. It is a fortunate day for ihe cause of historic truth when the leaders of the democratic party leave the declamalion of the Inistings and the base flattery of popular adulation, and betake themselves lo the arena of real nrgiimcni. We feel the same joy at beholdini,' Mr. Hiilwer arm himself in tlie panoply of the fu-M, and court the assaults of hisiorical invcsliicaiion, with which the knights of old saw iheniM-lvrs extricated from the mob of plebeian insurrec- tion, and led forth to ihe combat of highborn chivalry. Mr. Bulwer is, in every point of virw. .idi:i tingui.shed writer. His work on Kn^iand and the English is a brilliant performance, abound- ing with sparkling, containing some profound 230 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Hi I Dbservations, and particularly imercsting to ihe mulliludc of persons to vhom foreiirn tra- velling has rendered the comparison of Eng- lish and French character and institutions an object of interest. His novels in profound knowledge of the human heart, brilliancy of description, pathos of incident, and eloquence of language, are second to none in the English language. The great defects of his writings, in a political point of view, are the total ab- sence of any reference to a superintending power and the moral government of the world ; and the continual and laboured attempt to ex- culpate the errors, and screen the vices, and draw a veil over the perils of democratic go- vernment. The want of the first, in an inves- tigation into human aflairs, is like the absence of the character of Hamlet in the play bearing his name: the presence of the second a con- tinued drawback on the pleasures which an impartial mind derives from his otherwise able and interesting observations. More espe- cially is a constant sense of the corruption and weakness of human nature an indispen- sable element in every inquiry or observation which has for its object the weighing the capa- bility of mankind to bear the excitements, and wield the powers, and exercise the responsi- bility of self-government. We are not going to enter into any theological argument on original sin, how intimately soever it may be blended with the foundation of all in\ estiga- tions into the right principles of government; we assert only a fad, demonstrated by the ex- perience of every age, and acquiesced in by the wise of every country, that there is an universal tendency to cori'uption and license in human nature — that religion is the only effectual bridle on its excesses, and that the moment that a community is established, with- out the eflective agency of that powerful curb on human passion, the progress of national affairs becomes nothing but the career of the prodigal, brilliant and alluring in the outset, dismal and degrading in the end. It is on this account that the friends of -freedom have in every age been the most resolute and perse- vering enemies of democracy; because that fervent and searching element, essential to the highest national greatness, and the best ingre- dient in its prosperit)', if duly coerced and tempered, becomes its most devouring and fatal enemy the instant that it breaks through its barriers, and obtains the unrestrained di- rection of the public destinies. The views of the republican and the demo- crat are the very reverse of all this. Accord- ing to them, wickedness and corruption are the inheritance of the oligarchy alone; aristocra- cies are always selfish, grasping, rapacious ; democracies invariably energetic, generous, confiding. Nobles, they argue, never act but from designing or selfif^li views ; their constant agent is human corruption ; their incessant afipeal to the basest and most degrading prin- ciples of our nature. Republicans alone are really philanthropic in their views; they alone Httend to the interests of the masses; they alone lay the fuuiidalioiis of the social system on Ihe broad basis of general well-being. Monarchi- cal governments are founded on the caprice of a single t3Tant; aristocratic on the wants 0| rapacious oligarchy; democratic alone on \\ consulted desires and grateful experience 1 the whole community. If these propositici were all true, they would be decisive in favc of popular, and highly popular institutioij but unfortunately, though it is perfectly con.' that monarchies and aristocracies are maii' directed, if uncontrolled by the people, to si- port the interests of a single or an oligarchiil government, it is no less true, that the rapac of a democracy is just as great; that the . sponsibility of its leaders, from the numb< those invested with power, is infinitely li-, and that the calamities which, in its unm. gated form it in consequence lets loose on l> community, are such as in every age have \ to its speedy subversion. ■ The Conservative principle of govemme, on the other hand, is, that mankind are ra- cally and universally corrupt; that when • vested with power, in whatever form of gove . ment, and from whatever class of society, tbr are immediately inclined to apply it to thr own selfish ends ; that the diffusion of educatii and knowledge has no tendency whatever) eradicate this universal propensity, but oir gives it a difierent, less violent, but not Id interested direction ; — that the diffusion of - preme power among a multitude of han : minishes to nothing the responsibility of ea individual, while it augments in a proportion 5 degree the rapacity and selfishness whicls brought to bear on public afiairs; — that wli the multitude are the spectators of govcmnK , they are inclined to check or restrain its abm', because others profit, and they sufier by the ; but when tliey become government itself, tlf instantly support them, because they profit, :1 others suffer from their continuance; — tt democratic institutions thus, when once fi^ and really established, rapidly deprave B public mind, and engender an universal spt of selfishness in the majority of the peojf, which speedily subverts the foundations f national prosperity; and that it is only wla property.is the directing, and numbers the c- trolling power, that the inherent vices and s • ishness of the depositaries of authority cane effectually coerced by the opinion of the gi-t majority who are likely to sufltr by its > cesses, or a lasting foundation be laid in e adherence of national opinion to the princijs of virtue for any lengthened enjoyment of e blessings of prosperity, or any durable i- charge of the commands of duty. These are the opposite and conflicting p ■ ciples of government which are now at is e in the world: and it is to support the fonf that Mr. Uulwcr has brought the power ca cultivated mind and the vigour of an enlarid intellect. Athens was a favourable grouniO take, ill order to enforce the incalculable ; ers of the democratic spring in societ}'. where else is to be found a state so smal •» its origin, and yet so great in its progress : o contracted in its territory, and yet so gigaiO in its achievements: so limited in numb »i and yet so immortal in genius. Its domini s (in the continent of Greece did not exceedn English county; its free inhabitants nef i BULWER'.S ATHENS. 231 ■moontcd to thirty thousand citizens — j-ct these I inconsiderable numbers have filled the world with their renown; poetry, phi' ' : - ', - lecture, sculpture, trai^ody, con physic^, hi-tory. pontics, alu origin from Athiniui genius; ments of art with which they have overspread the world still form the standard of taste in every civilized Utttion on carih. It is not sur- prisin? thai so brilliant and' c.t] - a spectacle should in every a^c have ■ md transported maiikin ."M I • 1 1 ;_ . 1 1 I ' I j Roman confederacy, or reclaim such as. from I the presence of the Punic arms, had passed over to their enemies. Wli. on the very liist rfvrrsr, ih<- colonies mi . the LaociliMi the power of Athens was r< by the periodical reduction .: tending over the whole shores of tin ranean, and giving law, like the mi^hiy ii: which succeeded them, for a thousand }-^._ to the whole civilized world- Mr. Bulwcr appears to be aware of the brief tenure of existence which .\thens enjoyed ; but he erroneously ascribes to general causes or inevitable necessity what in its case was Uie result merely of the fever of democratic ac- tivity. " In that restless and unpausing energy, which is the characteristic of an intellectual republic, there seems, as it were, a kind of destiny: a power impossible to resist urges the state from action to action, from progress to progress, with a rapidity dangerous while it dazzles; resembling in this the career of indi- viduals impelled onward, first to attain, and thence to preserve power, and who cannot struggle against the fate which necessitates them to soar, until, by the moral gravitation of human things, the point which has no bfyond is attained; and the next etfort to rise is bm the prelude of their fall. In such stati's I deed, moves with gigantic stridfs ; }• cenirate what would l^ the epochs of centuries in the march of less popular institutions. Th« plani-t of thrir foriun:-s rolls with an equal • le of in'' 'I'he . Iilc IS ■ iiec of rcposf. The ...1 ,-,,.■ ill,. l.I t ! . iMt.r'i.'s . ■ \ i^'-'Ui, t'CC'-'iucs a or C. nn the • of w>'iii'ii, iiic ii.iri> iiii'i and i..ia w S3S ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. poverty, sickness, and premature dissolution. And ancient liistory affords a memorable con- trast in this particular; for while Athens, w-orn out and exhausted by the fever of democratic activit}', rose like a brilliant meteor only to fall after a life as short as that of a single individual, Home, in whom this superabundant energy was for centuries coerced and restrained by the solidity of Patrician institutions and the steadiness of Patrician rule, continued steadily to rise and advance through a succession of ages, and at length succeeded in subjecting the whole civilized earth to its dominion. It has long been a matter of reproach to Athens, that she behaved with the blackest in- graf.itude to her greatest citizens ; and that Miltiades, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, So- crates, Thucydides, and a host of other illus- trious men, received exile, confiscation, or death as the reward for the inestimable benefits they had conferred upon their fellow-citizens. Mr. Bulwer is much puzzled how to explain away these av/kward facts ; but as the banishment of these illustrious citizens, and the death of this illustrious sage, from the effects of popu- lar jealousjr, cannot be denied, he boldly en- deavours to justify these atrocious acts of the Athenian democracy. In regard to Miltiades he observes : — " The case was simply this, — Miltiades was accused — whether justly or unjustly no matter — it was clearly as impossible not to receive the accusation, and to try the cause, as it would be for an English court of justice to refuse to admit a criminal action against Lord Grey or the Duke of Wellington. Was Mil- tiades guilty or not] This we cannot tell. We know that he was tried according to the law, and that the Athenians thought him guilty, for they condemned him. So far this is not ingratitude — it is the course of law. A man is tried and found guilty — if past services and renown were to save the great from pun- ishment when convicted of a state offence, societj'^ would, perhaps, be disorganized, and certainly a free stale would cease to exist. The question, therefore, shrinks to this — was it, or was it not ungrateful in the people to relax the penalty of death, legally incurred, and commute it to a heavy fine 1 I fear we shall find few instances of greater clemency in monarchies, however mild. Miltiades unhap- pily died. But nature slew him, not the Athe- nian people. And it cannot be said with greater justice of the Athenians, than of a people no less illustrious, and who are now their judges, that it was their custom, 'dc iucr un Amiral pour cncoitragcr Ics aulrcs.' " This passage affords an example of the determination which Mr. Bulwer generally evinces to justify and support the acts of his darling democracy, however extravagant or monstrous they may have been. Doubtless, we are not informed very specifically as to the nature of the evidence adduced in support of the charge of bribery brought against Miltiades. Doubtless, also, it was necessary to receive the charge when once preferred ; but was it neces- sary to roiivict him, and send the hero of Mara- •hon, the saviour of his country, into a painful exile, which ultimately proved his death 1 That is the point, and, as the evidence is no laid before us, what right has Mr. Bulwer to assume that the Athenian multitude were not ungrateful or unjust in their decision] For their conduct, in this instance, they received the unanimous condemnation of the nistorian of antiquity, and yet Mr. Bulwer alhrms thai never Avas complaint more unjust. The fact is certain, that all the greatest benefactors of Athens were banished by the ostracism, or vole of all the citizens, though the evidence adduced in support of the charges is, for the most part; unknown ; but as these deeds were the acts of democratic assemblies, Mr. Bulwer, without any grounds for his opinion, in opposition to the unanimous voice of antiquity, vindicates and approves them. It is clear, from Mr. Bulwer's own admission, that the banishment of almost all these illus- trious benefactors of Athens was owing to their resisting democratic innovations, or striving to restore the constitution to the mixed condi- tion in which it existed previous to the great democratic innovations of Solon and Themis tocles : but such resistance, or attempts even by the most constitutional means to restore, he seems to consider as amply sufficient to justify their exile ! In regard to the banishment of Cimon he observes : — " Without calling into question the integrity and the patriotism of Cimon, without sup- posing that he would have entered into any intrigue against the Athenian independence of foreign powers — a supposition his subse- quent conduct effectually refutes — he might, as a sincere and warm partisan of the nobles, and a resolute opposer of the popular parly, have sought to restore at home the aristocratic balance of power, by whatever means his great rank, and influence, and connection with the Lacedemonian party could afford him. We are told, at least, that he not only op- posed all the advances of the more liberal party — that he not only stood resolutely by the interests and dignities of the Areopagus, which had ceased to harmonize with the more modern institutions, but that he expressly sovight to restore certain prerogatives which that assem- bly had formally lost during his foreign expe- ditions, and that he earnestly endeavoured to bring back the whole constitution to the more aristocratic government established hy Clis- thenes. It is one thing to preserve, it is another to restore. A people may be deluded, under popular pretexts, out of the rights they have newly acquired, but they never submit to be openly despoiled of them. Nor can we call that ingratitude which is but the refusal to surrender to the merits of an individual the acquisitions of a nation. "All things considered, then, I believe, that if ever ostracism was justifiable, it was so in the case of Cimon — nay, it was, perhaps, absolutely essential to the preservation of the constitution. His very honesty made him re- solute in his attempts against that constitution. His talents, his rank, his fame, his services, only rendered those attempts more dangerous. " Could the reader be induced to view, with an examination equally dispassionate, the seve- ral ostracisms of Aristides and Themistocles, BULWER'S ATHEXS. 233 he might see equal causes of justification, both in the motives and in the results. The first was absolutely necessary for the defeat of the aristocratic party, and the removal of restric- tions on those energies which instantly found the most glorious vents for action ; the second ■was justified by a similar nccessit}', that pro- duced similar effects. To impartial eyes a people may be vindicated ■without traducing those whom a people are driven to oppose. In such august and complicated trials tlie ac- cuser and defendant may be both innocent." Here then is the key to the hideous ingrati- tude of the Athenian people to their two most illustrious benefactors, Aristides and Cimon. They okstructcd tlie Movcimnt Parly : \\\c\ held by the constitution, and endeavoured to bring back a mixed form of government. This heinous offence was, in the e3'es of the Athe- nian democracy, and their apologist, Mr. Bul- ■wer, amply sufficient to justify their banish- ment: a proceeding, he says, which was right, even although they were innoccm of the charges laid against them — as if injustice can in any case be vindicated by state necessity, or the form of government is to be approved ^\hich requires for its maintenance the periodical sacrifice of its noblest and most illustrious citizens ! In another place, Mr. Bulwer observes — "Themistocles was summoned to the ordeal of the ostracism, and condemned by the majo- rity of suffrages. Thus, like Aristides, not punished for offences, but paying the honourable penally of rising by genius to that state of eminence, which threatens danger to the equality of republics. "He departed from Athens, and ch'.^se his refuge at Argos, whose hatred to Sparta, his deadliest fee, pronaised him the securest pro- tection. " Death soon afterwards removed Aristides from all competitorship with Cimon ; accord- ing to the most probable accounts he died at Athens ; and at the time of Plutarch his monu- ment was still to be seen at Phalerum. His countrymen, who, despite all plausible charges, were never ungrateful except where their lib- erties appeared imperilled, (whether rightly or erroneously our documents are too scantj^ to prove,) erected his monument at the public charge, portioned his three daughters, and awarded to his son Lysimachus a grant of one hundred minns of silver, a plantation of one hundred plethra of land, and a pension of four drachma; a day, (double the allowance of an Athenian ambassador.") There can be no doubt that the admission here candidly made by Mr. Bulwer is well- founded; and that jealousy of the eminence of their great national benefactors, or anxiety to remove aristocratic barriers to further popular innovations, was the real cause of that ingra- titude to their most illustrious benefactors, which has left so dark a slain on the Allien fan character. But can it seriously be argued that that constitution is to be approved, and licld up for imitation, which in this manner re- quires that national services should almost invariably be fillowod by confiscalion and ex- ile ; and anticipates the overthrow of the pulilin Uberties from the ascendency of everv illus- trious man, if he is not spccuily sent into ban. ishment? Is this the boasted intelligence of the masses 1 Is this the wisdom which demo- cratic institutions bring to bear upon public affairs 1 Is this the reward which, by a perma- nent law of nature, freedom must ever provide for the most illustrious of its champions 1 Wliy is it necessary that great men ami beneficent statesmen or commanders should invariably be exiled ■? The English constitution required for its continuance the exile neither of Pitl nof Fox, of Nelson nor Wellington. The Roman republic, until the fatal period when the au- thority of the aristocracy was overthrown liy the growing encroachments of the plebeians, retained all its illustrious citizens, with a few well-known excrptions, in its own bosom: and the tomb of the Scipios still attests the num- ber of that heroic race, who, with the exception of the illustrious conqueror of Hannibal, the victim, like Themistocles, of democratic jea- lousy, were gathered to the tomb of their fa thers. There is no necessity in a well-reg\ilaled state, where the different powers are duly ba- lanced, of subjecting the illustrious to the os- tracism: good government provides against danger without committing injustice. Mr. Bulwer has candidly stated the perni- cious effect of those most vicious of the many vicious institutions of Athens — the exacting tribute from their conquered and allied stales to the relief of the dominant multitude in the ruling city; and the fatal devolution to the whole citizens of the duties and responsibility of judicial power. On the first subject he ob- serves : " Thus at home and abroad, time and for- tune, the occurrence of events, and the happy accident of great men, not only maintained the present eminence of Athens, but promised, to ordinary foresight, a long duration of her glory and her power. To deeper observers, the pic- ture might have presented dim, but prophetic shadows. It was clear that the command Athens had obtained was utterly dispropor- tioned to her natural resources — that her great- ness was altogether artificial, and rested partly upon moral rather than physical causes, and partly upon the fears and the weakness of her neighbours. A sterile soil, a limited terrilorj', a scant}' population — all these — the drawbacks and disadvantages of nature — the wonderful energy and confident daring of a free state might conceal in prosperity ; but the first ca- lamity could not fail to expose thein to jeal.nis and hostile eyes. The empire delegated tc the Athenians, they must naturally desire lo retain and to increase; and there was every reason to forebode that their ambiliim woul;'. soon ex- ceed their capaeilies to sustain it. As the state become accustomed lo its power, it would N-arn to abuse it. Increasing civilization, Uixiiry, and art, brought with them new expenses, and Athens had already been peririitled to indulije with im]iunily the dangerous pa- • t- aclingtributefromherneighliours. 1' , ice upon other resources than those of the n.ilive population has ever been a main cause of the destruction of despotisms, and it cannot fail, sooner or later, lo be equally pernicious to thd republics that trust to it. The rcsourcci o( S84 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. taxation confined to freemen and natives, are aimo.st incalculable: the resources of tribute wrunu: from foreigners and dependents, are sternly limited and terribly precarious — they rot away the true spirit of industry in the people that demand the impost — they implant ineradicable hatred in the states that concede it." There can be no doubt that these observa- tions are well-founded; and let us beware lest they become applicable to ourselves. Al- ready in the policy of England has been evinced a sufficient inclination to load colonial industry with oppressive duties, to the relief of the do- minant island, as the enoi'mous burdens im- posed on West India produce, to the entire re- lief of the corresponding agricultural produce at home, sutnciently demonstrates. And if the pre- sent democratic ascendcnc)'^ in this country should continue unabated for any considerable time, we venture to prophesy, that if no other and more immediate cause of ruin sends the com- monwealih to perdition, it will infallibly see its colonial empire break off, and consequently its maritime power destroyed, by the injustice done to, or the burdens imposed on, its colo- nial possessions, by the impatient ruling mul- titude at home, who, in any measure calculated to diminish present burdens on themselves, at whatever cost to their colonial dependencies, will ever see the most expedient and popular course of polic}'.' The other enormous evil of the Athenian constitution — viz., the exercise of judicial powers of the highest description by a mob of several thousand citizens, is thus described by our author: "A yet more pernicious evil in the social state of the Athenians was radical in their con- stitution, — it was their courts of justice. Pro- ceeding upon a theory that must have seemed specious and plausible to an inexperienced and infant republic, Solon had laid it down as a principle of his code, that as all men were in- terested in the preservation of law, so all men might exert the privilege of the plaintiff and accuser. As society grew more complicated, the door was thus opened to every species of vexatious charge and frivolous litigation. The common informer became a most harassing and powerful personage, and made one of a fruitful and crowded profession: and in the very capital of liberty there existed the worst species of espionage. But justice was not thereby facilitated. The informer was regarded with universal hatred and contempt; and it is easy to perceive, from the writings of the great comic poet, that the sympathies of the Atlienian audience were, as those of the Eng- lish public at this day, enlisted against the man who brought the inquisition of the law to the hearth of his neighbour. "Solon committed a yet more fatal and in- curable error when he carried the^emocralic principle into judicial tribunals. lie evidently considered that the very strength and life of his constitution rested in the Helia^a — a court the numbers and nature of which have been already described. Perhaps, at a time when * llbw iint^n hai tbia prophecy been accomplished 1 8«pt. 5, 1841. the old olisarcliy was yet so formidable, might have been diflicult to secure justice the poorer classes, while the judges were ;■ lected from the wealthier. But justice to . classes became a yet more capricious unci tainty when a court of law resembled a pop. lar hustings. "If we intrust a wide political suffrage the people, the people at least hold no trust f others than themselves and their posterity they are not responsible to the public, for lb are the public. But in law, where there are tv parties concerned, the plaintiff and defenda, the judge should not only be incorruptible, b: strictly responsible. In Athens the people !■ came the judge ; and, in offences punishable ■ fine, were the very party interested in procuri- condemnation ; thenumbersof the jury preveiv/ ed all responsibility, excused all abuses, a made them susceptible of the same shamele excesses that characterize self-elected corpoi. tions — from which appeal is idle, and ov which public opinion exercises no conu These numerous, ignorant, and passionate ; semblies, were liable at all times to the he? of party, to the eloquence of individuals, to the whims, and caprices, the prejudices, t^ impatience, and the turbulence, which mi; ever be the characteristics of a multitude ora' addressed. It was evident also that from si vice in such a court, the wealthy, the cmine and the learned, M'ilh other occupation amusement, would soon seek to absent the selves. And the final blow to the integr. and respectability of the popular judicatui was given at a later period by Pericles, wh. he instituted a salary, just suliicient to ten the poor and to be disdained by the afflue to every dicast or juryman in the ten ordina courts. Legal science became not the pi fessiou of the erudite and the laborious fe but the livelihood of the ignorant and idle m' titude. The canvassing — the cajoling — t bribery — that resulted from this, the m( vicious, institution of the Athenian democra — are but too evident and melancholy toke of the imperfection of human wisdom. Li properly, and character, were at the hazard a popular election. These evils must ha been long^ in progressive operation ; but p' haps they were scarcely visible till the fa innovation of Pericles, and the "flagrant ( cesses that ensued allowed the people the selves to listen to the branding and lerril satire upon the popular judicature, which still preserved to us in the comedy of Aris' phanes. "At the same time, certain critics and h torians have widelj' and grossly erred in si posing that these courts of ' the soverei multitude' were partial to the poor, and host to the rich. All testimony proves that the I; was lamentably the reverse, 'i'he defendr was accustomed to engage the persons of ra or influence whom he might number as 1 friends, to appear in court on his behalf. A pro|)crty was employed to procure at the 1 of justice the suffrages it could command a political election. The greatest vice of t democratic Helin?a was, that by a fine i wealthy could purchase pardon — by inter BILW I:KS ATHENS. 3^6 tfce rreat could soAcn law. But the r! w«TC neaiiist the poor man. To him li; was indeed cheap, but justice dear. He h much the same inequality to strusjulc agaiu in a suit with a powerful antagonist, that he would have had in contesting with him for an office in the .idministration. In all trials rest- ing on the voice of popular assomMir?, it ever has l)een and ever will be found, that, iirJtrif paribtis,lhc aristocrat will defeat Ihc plebeian." These observations are eiiually just and lu- minous ; and the concluding one in particular, 35 to til" !"i!''ncy of a corrupt or corruptible judicial iniiintude to decnle in favour of the rich aristocrat in preference to the poor ple- beian, in an author of .Mr. Bulwer's prepos- sessions, highly creditable. The only surpris- in • ' -; how an author, who could see so c! 1 express so well, the total incapa- city of a multitude to exercise the functions of a judge, should not have perceived, that, for the same reason, they are disqualified from taking an active part to any good or useful purpose ill the formation of laws or practical •dminisiraiion of government, except by pre- sen-ing a vigilant eye on the conduct of others. In fact, the temptations to the poor to swerve from the path of rectitude, or conscience, in the case of government appointments or mca- s^re-^. ar'- just as much the stronger than in the jiiilL'mcnt of individuals, as the subjects requiring investigation are more intricate or didicult, the objects of contention more import- ant and i;littering, and the wealth which will be pxp'-tiled in corruption more abundant. And III- r • in truth lies the eternal objection to dem"< ri: '' institutions, that, by withdrawing the pr-i.pl'- from their right province — that of the ceii-.p- rir controllers of government — and r*" ' ■ :> powers (>f actual a^i . of ali'airs, they nc- C- t I .Mich ad<'liise of llat- t»-i . the eloqiKMit or wealthy c.i 1 not merely unfits them f,,. ' ' ' 'if any pub- I: ■ I d<'priiv«'» I thoii h r..ll.-.l ■]• ( h- lutely o . . ,... . bly with CT ! u, that • wholly cscajxu m-- Miock. Tin- mity did not cease suddenly as concussions were r men and treasure : < no less than twenty thousanil ; in the shock. Thusdepopn' ■■ and distressed, the cneiii, of Sparta nursed within hi In. i.i, to seize the moment to execute tii geance.and con-.uininate her destnirti ,ii der Pausanias, we have seen before, '" Helots were already ripe for revolt. T i of that fierce conspirator checked, but >\ a nut crush, their designs of freedom. Now was the moment, when Sparta lay in ruins — now was the moment to realize their dreams. From field to field, from village to village, the news of the earthquake became the watchword of revolt. Up rose the Helots — thcv armed themsel'. I'ouredon — a' ing and : - multiiiide !• , by the wrath ol man, all whom that of nature had yet spared. The earthquake that levelled Sparta, rent her chains; nor did the shock create one chasm so dark and wide as that be- tween the master and the slave. " It is one of the sublimest and ir. I spectacles in history — thai city in ru... earth still trembling — the grim and dauntless soldiery collected amidst piles of d . ' ! ruin ; and in such a time, ami •sii^h the multitude sensible, not i ' • of wrong, and rising, not to su venge: — all that should have di>. bier enmity, giving fire to theirs ; calamity their blessing — dismavii was as if the C«r<*at Mother ) iiioiH'd her children to vin abused, the all-inalienable 1 1 from her; and il;- "■ ■■( the ........ ■> was but the ann ut of an ar; t union bttwcLU Nature and the i>,>- or of the enrthqu.iKe, n vers il corruption ol opinion ai'T- ■ ■ • ■ ■ ''• - test to i>"' «'i men I" Ci " " of \Sr I. BuU.-[ I; cipl«"t 1. 1 v , i-h we diflrr. I*el o» i jn • r! c ihr IT I nrm.*", i rr- ' I' ■ l> i Hrrri, ..! - ".\n ... ence, IT' Ihr : hull/ the city, and on which the wotuea of , tucl lu rcbcliuni, audt *«m^»( i<^-u«:U v,M lUo inr tn In many I' •r and ' 236 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Messenians, kindred to them by blood and an- cient remiiuscenccs of heroic strntjgles, they seized that same Ilhomo which tlieir hereditary Aristodeiniis had before occupied with unfor- gottcn valour. This they fortified ; and occu- pying also the neighbouring lands, declared open war upon their lords. As the Messe- nians were the more worthy enemy, so the general insurrection is known by the name of the Third Messenian War." The incident here narrated of the King of Sparta, amidst the yawning of the earthquake and the ruin of his ca])ital, sounding the trum- pets to arms, and the Lacedaemonians assem- bling in disciplined array around him, is one of the sublimest recorded in history. The pencil of Martin would there find a fit subject ibr its noblest eflbrts. We need not wonder that a people, capable of such conduct in such a moment, and trained by discipline and habit to such docility in danger, should acquire and maintain supreme dominion in Greece. The next passage with which we shall gra- tify our readers, is an eloquent eulogium on a marvellous topic — the unrivalled grace and beauty of the Athenian edifices, erected in the time of Pericles. "Then rapidly progressed those glorious fa- brics which seemed, as Plutarch gracefully expresses it, endowed with the bloom of a perennial youth. Still the houses of private citizens remained simple and unadorned; still were the streets narrow and irregular; and even centuries afterwards, a stranger entering Athens would not at first have recognised the claims of the mistress of Grecian art. But to the homeliness of her common thoroughfares and private mansions, the magnificence of her public edifices now made a dazzling contrast. The Acropolis that towered above the homes and thoroughfares of men — a spot too sacred for human habitation — became, to use a pro- verbial phrase, 'a city of the gods.' The citi- zen was everywhere to be reminded of the majesty of the State — his patriotism was to be increased by the pride in her beauty — his taste to be elevated by the spectacle of her splendoar. Thus flocked to Athens all \vho throughout Greece were eminent in art. Sculp- tors ani architects vied with each other in adorniii g the young Empress of the Seas ; then rose the masterpieces of Phidias, of Callicrates, of Mencsicles, which, even either in their broken remains, or in the feeble copies of imi- tators less inspired, still command so intense a wonder, and furnish models so immortal. And if, so to speak, their bones and relics ex- cite our awe and envy, as testifying of a love- lier and grainier race, which the deluge of time has sw( pt away, what, in that day, must have been their brilliant effect — unmutilated in their fair proportions — fresh in all tlieir lineaments and hues? P\)r their beauty was not limited toth* symmetry of arch and eohinin, nor their materials confined to the marbles of Pcntelli- cus and I'aros. Even the exterior of the temples glowed M'ith the richest harmony of colours, and was deroratod with the purest goiil; an atmosphere peculiarl}'' favourable both to the display and the preservation of art, permitted to external pediments aiid friezes all the minuteness of ornament — all the brillianc of colours; — such as in the interior of Italia churches may yet be seen — vitiated, in the las by a gaudy and barbarous taste. Nor did th Athenians spare any cost upon the works th; were, like the tombs and tripods of their ht, roes, to be the monuments of a nation to dii, tant ages, and to transmit the most irrefragabl proof 'that the power of ancient Greece W£ not an idle legend.' The whole democrac were animated with the passion of Pericles and when Phidias recommended marble as cheaper material than ivory for the great st; tue of Minerva, it was for that reason th; ivory was preferred by the unanimous voice c the assembly. Thus, whether it were extrav. gance or magnificence, the blame in one cas the admiration in another, rests not more wil' the minister than the populace. It was, i: deed, the great characteristic of those work that they were entirely the creations of tl people : without the people, Pericles could ni have built a temple, or engaged a sculpto': The miracles of that day resulted from tl' enthusiasm of a population yet young — full ( the first ardour for the beautiful — dcdicatii; to the state, as to a mistress, the trophies h nourably won, or the treasures injurious extorted — and uniting the resources of a D: tion with the energy of an individual, becan:: the toil, the cost, were borne by those wl succeeded to the enjoyment and arrogated tl glory." : This is eloquently said: but m searchir! for the causes of the Athenian supremacy : taste and art, especially sculpture and archite ture, we suspect the historic observer mu look for higher and more spiritual causes thi the mere energy and feverish excitement ( democratic institutions. For, admitting th energy and universal exertion are in eve: age the characteristic of republican states, ho did it happen that, in Athens alone, it took : early and decidedly the direction of taste ai art? That is the point which constitutes tl marvel, as well as the extraordinary perfectii which it at once acquired. Many other natioi in ancient and modern times have been r publican,— Corinth, Tyre, Carthage, Siiln Sardis, Syracuse, Marseilles, Holland, Swii land, America, — but where shall we find oi which produced the Parthenon or the Apol Belvidere, the Tragedies of ^Eschylus or tl wisdom of Socrates, the thought of Thucydidi or the visions of Plato ] How has it happenc that those democratic institutions, which modern times are found to be generally a sociated only with vulgar manners, urban di cord, or commercial desires, should there ha\ elevated the nation in a few years to the higl est pinnacle of intellectual glory — that, insteji of Dutch ponderosity, or Swiss slowness, ( American ambition, or Florentine discord,! publicaiiism on the shores of Attica produce the fire of Demosthenes, the grace of Euripide the narrative ofXenophon,the taste of Phidiasj After the most attentive consideration, w6 fin it impossible to explain this marveT of marve by the agency merely of human causes; ar are constrained to ascribe the placing of tl eye of Greece on the shores of Attica to tl BILWHRS ATIIKNS. 237 ■ame invisible hand wlucli has fixcil the won- ' ders of vision in the huniau I'crchcail. There [ are certain starts in human progress, and more especially in the advance of art, which it is utterly hopeless to refer to any other cause but I the imnndiate dcsii^n and acmcy of the Al- ! mightv. Democratic institutions all'ord no sort I of explanation of them : we sec no Parlhcnons, nor fckiphucles, nor I'latos in embryo, either in America since its independence, or France [ durint; the Revolution, nor England since the I passing of the Reform Bill. When we reflect that taste, in Athens, in thirty years after the Persian invasion, had risen up from the in- fantine rudeness of the -Egina Marbles to the faultless peristyle and matchless sculpture of the Parthenon; that in modern Italy, the art of paintincr rose in the lifetime of a single in- dividual, who died at the a?e of thirtj--eight. from the slifl' outline and hard colouring of Pictro Perru^ino to the exquisite grace of Raphael: and that it was during an age when the barons to the north of the Alps could nei- ther read nor write, and when rushes were ttrewed on the floors instead of carpets, that the unrivalled sublimity of Gothic Cathedrals was conceived, and the hitherto unequalled skill of their stnicture attained : we are con- strained to admit that a greater power than that of man superintends human atTairs, and Aat, from the rudest and most unpromising materials. Providence can, at the appointed season, bring forth the greatest and most ex- alted efforts of human intellect. As a favourable specimen of our author's powers of military description, no unimport- ant quality in an historian, we shall gratify our readers by his account of the battle of Platca; the most vital conflict to the fortunes of the spccics which occurred in all antiquity, and which we have never elsewhere nad in so graphic and animat<'d a firm — " .\s the troops of .Mardonius advanced, the rest of the Persian armament, deeming the ' • •'•';■ • ' ;r-ue, raisrd 1 tumultu- ■ r. Persian line, and if not of a timorous, at IcnsI of an irre- s< '■■•.- ■- ' • • < lime in ^o- ••••••■ •>■■• A But ^ u • ■I e, and cut oil from >'>msclvrs ihas 11 bucklers, waiir.l with a stern patifiicc me time of thi'ir leader and of Heaven. 'I'li- n I'U C'allicrates, the stateliest and strongest soldier in the whole army, lamcDl.^gt not death, but that his sword was as yel undrawn against the invader. "And still sacrifice after inerifir* s«<«»m»*d to forbid llio battle, when I' eyes that sireained with , , •• of Juno, that stood hard by, su; the tutelary goddess of Cithitron, thai u m,. i.iics forbade the Greeks to conquer, they mieht al least fall like warriors. And while this prayer, the tokens waited fur suddenly visible in the victims, and the augurs announced the promise of coming victory. "Therewith, the order of battle rang instant- ly through the anny, and, to u^c the t comparison of Plutarch, the iSp.nrian suddenly stood forth in its strength, like Mune fierce animals-erecting its bristles and pre- paring its vengeance for the foe. The ground broken in many steep and'precipitoi: " ' — . and intersected by the .\sopus, wlinsc i stream winds over a broad and ru.-.liy unfavourable to the movements of , and the Persian foot advanced therefore on the Greeks. "Drawn up in their massive phalanx, the Lacedaemonians presented an aliin'^t impene- trable bod}' — sweeping slowly on, compact and serried — while the hot and undisciplined va- lour of the Persians, more fortunate in the skirmish than the battle, broke itself in a thousand waves upon that moving rock. Pour- ing on in small numbers at a time, they fell fast round the progress of the (Jreeks — their armour slight against the strong pikes of •Sparta — their courage without skill — their numbers without discipline; ' " ' " '^l irallanily, even when on tli' the pikes with thfir naki-d hai woiidirful agility which still < i- Oriental swordsmen, springing to their feet, : ■ ' - ■ '■ -iranns, when -'• • -r- ■ wav their eu"' '. graj- " I A r n by his white 1 ,. .'i,.. V il. ,,r 1 •;..., vcr I fame, ami.'^vrii m laliinclhi: r.it.ti ^ \ r Iiii-ili ilii- lib 1 ni th hi::. Motrin rr- r r fi. •• lans • icir cha: di■ scribes to the chorus the progress of the wat(. fires which announced to expecting Greece t! fall of Troy — a passage perhaps unrivalledi the classical authors in picturesque and vi'l images, and which approaches more neai, though it has surpassed in sublimity. Sir W. ter Scott's description of the bale-fires wh i announced to the Lothians a warden inroad" the English forces : — " A gleam — a gleam— from Ida's height, By the Fire-god sent, it came ; — Froin watch to watch it leapt that light, As a rider rode the Flame ! It shot throuiih the startled sky. And the torch of that blazing glory Old Leninos caught on high, On its holy promontory. And sent it on, the jocund sisn. To Athos, Mount of Jove divine. Wildly the while, it rose from the isle, So that the niinht of the journeying light Skimmed over the back of the gleaming brine Farther and faster speeds it on. Till the watch that keep Macistus steep- See it burst like a blazing sun ! Doth Macistus sleep On his tower-clad steep 1 No : rapid and red doth the wild fire sweep; It flashes afar, on the wayward stream Of the wild Euripus, the rushing beam t It rouses the light on Messapion's heii'lit. And they feed its breath with the withered heat But it may not stay ! And away — away — It bounds in its freshening might. Silent and soon. Like a broadened moon. It passes in sheen, Asopus green, And bursts on Cithtcron gray : The warder wakes to the signal-ravf. And it swoops from the hill with a broader bin On — on the liery glory rode — Thy lonely lake, Gorgopis, glowed — To Megara's mount it came ; They feed it again. And it streams amain — A giant beard of llame ! The headland cliffs that darkly down O'er the Sarnnic waters frown, Are pass'd with the swift one's lurid stride, And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide, With might icr march and fiercer power It gained Arachne's ncighbonring tower — Thence on our Argivc roof its rest it won, Of Ida's lire the Ions-descended .'*on ! Bright harbinger of glory and of joy ! So first and last with equal honour crown'd, In sol('mn feasts the race-torch circles round — And these my heralds :— this my Sign ok 1'Eaci Lo ! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greec< Stalk, ill stern tumult, through the halls of Trt' We have noTV discharged the pleasing ij of quoting some of the gems, and pointinir some of the merits of th s remarkable ^'. It remains with equal impartiality, and in " unfriendly spirit, to glance at some of its fai« — faults which, we fear, will permanently p vent it from taking the place to which it is i BLLNVi:iis ATin:\s. titled, from its brilliancy ami research, in the I archives of litf.rts is tl; mt I effort which i> made to jiixtify thi' pi j:s, and extenuate the faults, and Ina^nlly the I merits of democratic societies ; and the e(|ually ( uniform attempt to underrate the value of anstorratic institutions, and blacken the pro- ceedings of aristocratic states. This, as Fouche would say, is worse than an offence — it is a fault. Its unfairness and absurdity is 90 obvious, that it neutralizes and obliterates the elTiTt wliiih otherwise ini£;ht be produced by the bri liaiit picture which Mr. Buhver's :ranscrih!cnt subject, as well as his own ro- markabli' powers of narrative and description, afford. By the common'calculation of chances, it is impossible to suppose that the aristocra- cies are always in the wron^, and the demo- cracies always in the riijht; that the former are for ever actuated by selfish, corrupt, and di-screditable motives, and the latter everlast- ingly intlii'Mired by generous, ennobling, and upright foiliir^s. We may predicate with per- fect certainty of any author, be he aristocratic, monarchical, or republican, who indulges in such a strain of thoushl and expression, ex- travaijant eulog;iums from his own party in the outset, and possibly undeserved but certain neglect from posterity in the end. Mankind, in f^iiture times, when present objects and party excitement have ceased, will never read — or, at least, never attach faith to — any works which place all the praise on the one side and all thf Mame to the other of any of the child- ren of .Atiam. Rely upon it, virtue and vice are ver)' equally divided in the world : praise and blame require to be very equally bestowed. Different institutions produce a widely different : society and the progress of human • It icause the one makes ui: ■ all m'-n bad ; but be- ta ; , le bad or selfish qiiali- liet of one class to exercise an unrestrained will, to than ail iinj'r< >pr: playing siirh <-,\ siibjecl, Mr. Hiilw. 1 , the weight of th'- .Mr nciitra- , 1 ,...i . Bydi.* '■n the 'eel.i de- livered have been so heavy that Ibcy have been felt. Nothing r ■ '■ ' - than this, even for 1 which he sn \ attacking an .1 r inaccuracies that you are to > lize the impression he hn^ ■ it is by stating facts, and 1 inconsistent with his opiiunii . " ars fsl cclarr nriciii," nowbeio .; « clearly than here: Lingard is the model of a skilful controversialist, whose whole work, sedulously devoted to the upholding of the Catholic cause through the v ' ' ' ; •.• of Enc;land, hardly contains a sii en^ venomed passage against a proi« ori- an. Mr. Bulwer would be much ! r of the habits of the bar, before he ventured into the arena of political conflict. It is not by his waspish notes that the vast influence of Mit- ford's Greece on public f ated: their only effect is 1 of his attempted and otherwise able refutation. The future historian, who is to demolish the influence of Colonel Napier's eloquent and able, but prejudiced and, in political affairs, partial history of the Peninsular war, will hanlly once mention his name. The last and by far the most scrioas objec- tion to Mr. Bulwer's work is the complete oblivion which it evinces of a superi Providence, either in dealing out i i retribution to public actions, wIkiIh-i oy na- tions or individuals in this world, or in di duc- inp from the .agency of human virtue or vice, and the shock of confl' ' ■ means of progressive im; not say that Mr. B' from it. From the 1 ;is well as many exquisite 1 ■ -Is, wc should infer the 1 vet to sec his irrcat p< . We V n in hiii •icy. This is I assions. the ..». We do r in his ,. .1 wo in he as ■■• a su- ind It . Th' 111 of the water. The conviiNmns poIitir.ll p.,'.v-rs thm ' the lrnul>lc lu ...... I.. . nil II II IS I ■ :.. r. |r I ■i jf those u Ii . lilt'T 1 in p< I ftion. M ■•'•-' ■ n hM .1 nil - 'Pl Circciao commonwealiii. Here, too, is morvi ni ol the age; and wc give a wwrd iw the «im S40 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. As an example of the defect of which we complain, and to avoid the suspicion of injns- lice in the estimate we have formed of the tendcnry in this particular of his writings, we shall pive an extract. Perhaps there is no event in the history of the world which has been so momentous in its consequences, so vital in its eflects, as the repulse of the Per- sian invasion of Greece by Xerxes, and none in which the superintending agency of an overruling Providence was so clearly evinced. Observe the reilections which Mr. IJuhver de- duces from this memorable event. " When the deluge of the Persian arms rolled back to its eastern bed, and the world was once more comparatively at rest, the continent of Greece rose visibly and majestically above the rest of the civilized earth. Afar in the Latian plains, the infant state of Rome was silently and obscurely struggling into strength against the neighbouring and petty states in which the old Etrurian civilization was rapidly passing to deca}'. The genius of Gaul and Germany, yet unredeemed from barbarism, lay scarce known, save where colonized by Greeks, in the gloom of its woods and wastes. The pride of Carthage had been broken by a signal defeat in Sicily; and Gelo, the able and astute tyrant of Syracuse, maintained, in a Grecian colon}-, the splendour of the Grecian name. "The ambition of Persia, still the great mo- narchy of the world, was permanently checked and crippled; the strength of generations had been wasted, and the immense extent of the rmpire only served yet more to sustain the general peace, from the exhaustion of its forces. The defeat of Xerxes paralyzed the East. " Thus, Greece was left secure, and at liberty to enjoy the tranquillity it had acquired, and to direct to the arts of peace the novel and amazing energies which had been prompted by the dangers, and exalted by the victories, of war. "The Athenians, now returned to their city, saw before them the arduous task of rebuild- ing its ruins, and restoring its wasted lands. The vicissitudes of the war had produced many silent and internal, as well as exterior, changes. Many great fortunes had been broken ; and the ancient spirit of the aristocracy had received no inconsiderable shock in the power of new families ; the fame of the base-born and demo- cratic Themistocles — and the victories which a whole people had ])articipated — broke up much of the prescriptive and venerable sanc- tity attached to ancestral names, and to parti- cular families. This was salutary to the spirit of enterprise in all classes. The ambition of the great was excited to restore, by some active means, their broken fortunes and decaying in- fluence — the energies of the humbler ranks, already aroused by their new importance, were stimulated to maintain and to increase it. It was the very crisis in which a new direction might be given to the habits and the character of a whole people; and to seize all the advan- tages of that crisis. Fate, in Themistocles, had allotted to Athens, a man whose qualities were not only pre-eminently great in themselves, tu peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of the time. And, as I have elsewhere remarked, it is indeed the nature and prerogative of free states, to concentrate the popular will into something of the unity of despotism, by pro- ducing, one after another, a series of repre- sentatives of the wants and exigencies of The Hour — each leading his generation, but only while he sympathizes with its will ; — and either bafiling or succeeded by his rivals, not in pro- portion as he excels or he is outshone in ge- nius, but as he gives, or ceases to give, to the widest range of the legislative power, the most concentrated force of the executive ; thus unit- ; ing the desires of the greatest number, under the administration of the narrowest possible control ; — the constitution popular — the go- i vernment absolute but responsible." Now, in this splendid passage is to be seen a luminous specimen of the view taken of the most memorable events in history by the libe- ral writers. In his reflections on this heart- stirring event, in his observations on the ' glorious defeat of the arms of Eastern despot- ism by the infant efforts of European freedom, there is nothing said of the incalculable con- sequences dependent on the struggle — nothing on the evident protection afforded by a super- intending Providence to the arms of an incon- siderable Republic — nothing on the marvellous adaptation of the character of Themistocles to ' the mighty duty with Avhich he was charged, that of rolling back from the cradle of civil- ■ ization, freedom and knowledge, the wave of barbaric conquests. It was fate which raised ■ him up ! Against such a view of human at • fairs we enter our solemn protest. We allow nothing to fate, unless that is meant as another way of expressing the decrees of an overml* i ing, all-seeing, and beneficent intelligence. We see in the defeat of the mighty armament by the arms of a small city on the Attic shore — in the character of its leaders — in the efforts which it made — in the triumphs which it achieved, and the glories which it won— the clearest evidence of the agency of a superin- tending power, which elicited, from the collision ■ of Asiatic ambition with European freedom, the wonders of Grecian civilization, and the marvels of Athenian genius. And it is just because we are fully alive to the important agency of the democratic element in this me* morable conflict; because we see clearly what inestimable blessings, Avhcn duly restrained, it is capable of bestowing on mankind ; because we trace in its energy in every succeeding age the expansive force which has driven the blessings of civilization into the recesses of the earth, that we are the determined enemies of those democratic concessions which entire- ly destroy the beneficent agency of this power- ful element, which permit the vital heat of society to burst forth in ruinous explosions, or tear to atoms the necessary superincumbent masses, and instead of the smiling aspect of early and cherished vegetation, leave only in its traces the blackness of desolation and the ruin of nature. THE REIGX OF TEKROR. THE EETCN OF TEIUIOR.* Ml ,TiiK French Revolution is a subject on which |ither history nor public opinion have been lie as yet to pronounce an impartial verdict; r is it perhaps possible that the opinions of .jinkind should ever be unanimous, upon the ried events Avhich marked its course. The ssions excited were so fierce, the dangers nirred so tremendous, the sacrifices made rrreat, that the judgment not only of con- iipnrary but of future generations must be VPii'_'h the mimls of men ed on till' true character of th' proceedings, there is a great diversity of ion as to the necessity under which the lutisnists acted, and the effects with which vr ■■ ■■ • < •' ■• •- • .,„_ r... ..f Uonvciitioii wiT»; as n atrocious ; that the-y p! cial amelioration into . 1; stateil France for yc.u^ unn lu"- and d; brought to an tinlim'-ly fnil above a on of m<'n ; and finally n ut thf of the nation an iron , . as the table result and merited puni'>hment of criminal excesses. The revolutionists, ■ ilrn (1c Ii ronvontlon Nallnnnlr. P.ir M. I. — , lonFl. Tarln, f.Xl. Foreign Quarterly Review, v., February, IS3I. IG on the other hand, allege that these severities, however much to be deplored, wfrc unavoid- able in the peculiar circumstances m which France was then placed: they contend that the obstinate resistance of the privileged classes to all attempts at pacific amelioration, their im- placable resentment for the deprivation of their privileges, and their recourse to foreign bayo- nets to aid in their recovery, left to their an- tagonists no alternative but their extirpation ; that in this " mortal strife " the royalists showed themselves as unscrupulous in their'means, and would, had they triumphed, been as un- sparing in their vengeance, as their adver- saries ; and they maintain, that notwithstanding all the disasters with which it has been at- tended, the triumph of the Revolution has pro- digiously increased the productive powers and public happiness of France, and poured a flood of youthful blood 'into her veins. The historians of the Revolution, as might have been expected, incline to one or other of these two parties. Of these the latest and most distinguished are Bertrand de Molleville and Lacretelle on the royalist side, and Mignetand Thiers on that of the Revolution, the reputation of whose works is now too well established to require us to enter here into an appreciation of their merits or defects, or to be afiected by our praise or our censure. The work now before us, which is confined to the most stormy and stirring period of the Revolution, does not aspire, by its form, to a rivalry with all or any of those we have just mentioned. It consists of a series of grapliic sketches of the Nationa' Convention, drawn evidently by one well ac- quainted with the actors in its terrific annals and interspersed with a narrative composed a) a subsequent period, with the aids which the memoirs and historians of later limes afTord .\s such, it pos-scsses a degree of inti-rest < to any work on the same subject wi'h ■i* \ we are acquainted. Not only th<' the altitudes, the manner, the apjH very dress of the actors in the drama are r;hl before our eyes. The author seems, iieral, to spi'ak in the delineation of clia- la'Mi'r from his own recollections ;thespeechi"s which he has reported arc chielly transcribed from the columns of the Monitcur; but in some instances, especially the conversations of Daiiion, Robespierre, Barrere, n\\<\ \hf oih>'r r th'' .lacobins, we sm his historical remini sequent acquisitions, and put into the mouths of the leading characters of the day. prophecies too accurate in their fulfilment to hur' hrrn the product of human ' spraking, however, the W" of intimate acfpiaintance with ih md persons who are described; and .'i 'roni being published without a name, r ; tho Kuaranfe for it i-iown character and r' '■ '" ^o far as internal evidence is concerned, we arf 242 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. inclined to rank it with the most faithful nar- ralives of the events it records Avhich have vssued from the press. Its general accuracy, we are enabled, from a pretty extensive com- parison of the latest authorities, to confirm. We shall give some extracts, wiiich, if we arc not greatly mistaken, will justify the tone of commendation in which we have spoken of it. The period at which the work commences is the opening of the Convention, immediately after the revolt on the 10th of August had over- turned the throne, and when a legislature, elected by almost universal suffrage, in a state of unprecedented exasperation, was assembled to regenerate the state. Robespierre and Marat, the Agamemnon and Ajax of the democracy, are thus ably sketched : " Robespierre and Marat — enemies in secret, to external appearance friends — were early distinguished in the Convention ; both dear to the mob, but with different shades of character. The latter paid his court to the lowest of the low, to the men of straw or in rags, who were then of so much weight in the political' sys- tem. The needy, the thieves, the cut-throats — in a word, the dregs of the people, the caput inortunm of the human race, to a man supported Marat. " Robespierre, albeit dependent on the same class to which his rival was assimilated by his ugliness, his filth, his vulgar manners, and disgusting habits, was nevertheless allied to a more elevated division of it: to the shopkeep- ers and scribes, small traders, and the inferior rank of lawyers. These admired in him the politcssc bourgeoise ; his well-combed and pow- dered head, the richness of his waistcoats, the whiteness of his linen, the elegant cut of his coats, his breeches, silk stockings carefully drawn on, bright knee and shoe buckles ; every thing, in short, bespoke the gentlemanly preten- sions of Robespierre, in opposition to the sans- culottism of Marat. " The shopkeepers and the lower ranks of the legal profession never identify themselves with the populace, even during the fervour of a revolution. There is in them an innate spirit of feudalitjr, which leads them to despise the canaille and envy the noblesse : they de- sire equalit}'-, but only with such as are above themselves, not such as would confound them •with their workmen. The latter class is odious to them ; they envy the great, but they have a perfect horror for those to whom they give employment; never perceiving that the democratic principle can admit of no such distinction. This is the reason which made the aristocralie bourgeoise prefer Robespierre ; they thought they saw in his manners, his dress, his air, a certain pledge that he would never degrade them to the multitude; never associate them with those whose trade was tarried on in the mud, like Marat's supporters. Ariiiisl these divisions, one fixed idea alone unitea these opposite leaders; and that was, to give such a pledge to the Revolution, as would render it impossible to doubt their sin- ceritv, and that pledge was to be tlie blood of LouisXVI"— Vol. i. p. 28. Roland and his wife, the beautiful victim Jacoljin vengeance, are thus portrayed : " Roland Avas a man of ordinary capacii but he obtained the reputation of genius means of his wife, who thought, wrote, a spoke fur him. She was a woman of a uk superior mind; with as much virtue as prir as much ambition as domestic virtue. Dauj ter of an engraver, she commenced her can' by wishing to contend with a queen ; and • sooner had Marie Antoinette fallen, than S' seemed resolute to maintain the combat, ' longer against a person of her own sex, 1; with the men who pretended to rival the rej tation of her husband. " Madame Roland had great talent, but s wanted tact and moderation. She belonged' that class in the middling ranks that scarce knows what good breeding is; her mann(' were too brusque; she trusted implicitly; her good intentions, and was quite indiffen", in regard to external appearances, which, af; all, are almost every thing in this world. Li Marie Antoinette, she was master in her oi| family ; the former was king, the latter m] minister; her husband, whom she constan put forward, as often disappeared in her p sence, which gave rise to the bon mot of C(; dorcet: 'When I wish to see the minister the interior, I never can see any thing but i petticoat of his wife.' This was strictly tn, persons on business uniformly applied to Ai dame Roland instead of the minister; a;, whatever she may have said in her memoi; it is certain that unconsciousljr she opened ij portfolio with her own hand. She was to " last degree impatient under the attacks of tribune, to which she had no means of rep, and took her revenge b}- means of pamphf and articles in the public journals. In tin' she kept up an incessant warfare, which 1 land sanctioned with his name, but in wl: it was easy to discover the warm and brilh; style of his wife."— i. 38. These observations exhibit a fair speciirl of the author's manner. It is nervous, br, .; and sen tentious, rather than eloquent or impr* ; sive. The work is calculated to dispel ma' » illusions under which we, living at this c* tance, labour, in regard to the characters of i! Revolution. They are here exhibited in th" i genuine colours, alike free from the dark shat' in which they have been enveloped by onepait and the brilliant hues in which they are arr- cd by the other. In the descriptions, we !? the real springs of human conduct on this c vated stage ; the same littlenesses, jealou- and weaknesses which are every day coir cuous around us in private life. The Girondists in particular are stripp' their magic halo by his caustic hand. lU plays in a clear light the weakness as well brilliant qualities of that celebrated par; their ambition, intrigues, mob adulation, wH rising with the Revolution; their weaknei irresolution, timidity, when assailed by its fu> Their character is summed up in the follow:! words, which are put into the mouth of L' juinais, one of the most intrepid and nol* minded of the moderate party. I THE REIGN OF TERKOR. 243 I "The Girondists are m my mind a living pxample of the trulh of the maxim of Bcaumar- • s: 'My God! what idiots these men of ■lit are !' All their speeches delivered at hnr tribune are sublime; their actions are in- explicable on any principles of common sense. They amuse themselves by exhausting their ■iilarity in insignificant attacks, and waste ,• that means in such a manner that alrcadj- it IS almost annihilated. They destroyed them- selves when tlicy overturned the monarchy ; hey flattered themselves that they would reif»n ifterwards by their virtue and their brilliant inaiilies, little foreseeing how soon the Jaco- iins would mount on their shoulders. At pre- ;ent, to maintain themselves in an equivocal wsition, they will consent to the trial of the rinsr, flattering themselves that they will decide lis fate — they are mistaken ; it is the Mountain, lot they, that will carry the day. The Mountain s so far advanced in the career of crime that t cannot recede. Kcsides, it is indispensable nr it to render the Gironde as guilty as itself, n order to deprive it of the possibility of treat- separatelv ; that motive will lead to the ruction of Louis XVI."— i. 142, M.3, These observations are perfectly just; whe- ler they were made by Lanjuinais or not at the cried when they are said to have been spoken, • be doubtful ; but of this we are convinced, they contain the whole theory and true L'cret of the causes which convert popular lovements into guilty revolutions. It is the arly commission of crime which renders sub- ^V"^nt atrocities unavoidable ; men engage 1 the last deeds of cruelty to avoid the pun- hmont of the first acts of oppression. The n!y rule which can with safety be followed, thcr in political or private life, is uniformly abstain from acts of injustice ; never to do .•il that cond may come of it ; but invariably to >ed measure, not it, but whether it ■t. If any other principle be adopted — if •'■'• ^'•'■lem is introduced of committing tice or deeds of crueltv. from the rommenced, and can s<'idom l»c he theory of public moraN, (■.him! may appear, is in reality n r scale, .C III .. ; :en •• lit a re- 1 will su idea alike ii a triumvirate or a dictatorship.— If any one is to l>!anic for having scaii-ret these ideas among the public, it is myself; I invoke on my own head the tbundcr of the na tional vengeance— but before striking, deign to hear me. " When the constituted authoriiies exerted their power only to enchain ■ le; to murder the patriots under the II .; le law, can you impute it to mc as a crime that I in- voked against the wicked the tempest of popu- lar vengeance? — No — if you call it a crime, the nation would give you the lie; to the law, they felt that the method I .-d was the only one which could save inein, and assuming the rank of a dictator, they at once purged the land of the traitors who infested it.— " I shuddered at the vehement and disorderly movements of the people, when I saw them prolonged beyond the necessary point; in order that these movements should not for ever fail, to avoid thenecessitj'of their recommencement, I proposed that some wise and just citizen should be named, known for his attachment to freedom, to take the direction of them, and ren- der them conducive to the great ends of public freedom. — If the people could have appreciated the wisdom of that proposal, if they had adopt- ed it in all its plenitude, they would have swept off, on the day the Bastile was taken, five hun- dred heads from the conspirators. Every thing, had this been done, would now have been tran- quil. — For the same reason, I have frequently proposed to give instantaneous authority to a wise man, under the name of tribune, or dicta- tor, — the title signifies nothing; but the proof that I meant to chain him to the public service is, that I insisted that he should have a bullet at his feet, and that he should have no power but to strike olT criminal heads. — Such was my opinion; I have expressed it !>• : ivate, and given it all the currency i in my writings ; I have alhxcd my name to these com- positions; I am not ashamed of them ; if you cannot comprehend them, so much the worse •I- ■ ■ ■ • ■ '.T- •IS massacred because vou would nol ). ,1 III • II •-and more iiction ; if to i»o commit the wrong esrapf i ill fall on th** M-- ' ' •' One of the m. ■ It- - - : - , - -- -'-ir : for my own part, I declare I would b« l^^l to adopt 111' ' ■ ' ■ • a sig- pronf of inv il r, and v.-., whcuevci I uin ran- th** impearhm'-nt ol Mar.it iiyttini, \ i Inreiiscdiii amlutious views ! Iwillnol 1792. Marat' •■••••■" on th •• '•■ ' ...,.•"•. -t "ir lich is here ;• n th** M i ' I ni'- ■ I it ll.l\ ■ '\ III, iirt. — W " "I am ar.-iis.- 1 dI having rot, . nid ban l)<'rn my t.U'' ' I h '•I ibcspierr'" and Danton for a ,,..i, .; in .'m. '■••■■• . . .t..!. mnr 1 to It accusation has not a shadow of truth, ex- 1 cver>' spec ^rniy pt »o r - '•■ ! .,:,,, . .-^ duty '. 1 1 d Robespierre, have constually rejected liic j laid on the block. Let liu-.-'C who urc u*>w tei 1 244 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. rifying you with the shadow of a dictator, unite with me; unite with all true patriots, press the Assembly to expedite the great measures which will secure the happiness of the people, and I will cheerfully mount the scallbld any day of my life."— Vol. i. pp. 75, 76. We have given this speech at length, be- cause it contains a fair sample of revolutionary logic, and displays that mixture of truth and error, of generous sentiments and perverted ambition, which characterized the speeches as well as the actions of the leaders. Marat was well acquainted with his power before he made these admissions; he knew that the armed force of the multitude would not permit a hair of his head to be touched; he already saw his adversaries trembling under the menaces which encircled the hall, and the applause of the galleries which followed his words; he had the air of generous self-devotion, when in truth he incurred no real danger. The principles here professed were those on which he and his parly constantly acted. Their uniform doc- trine was, that they must destroy their enemies, or be destroyed by them ; that the friends of the Revolution were irrevocably engaged in a strife of life or death with the aristocracy ; that there was no alternative in the struggle — it must be victory or death. Such were the maxims of the Jacobins, and we should greatly err if we ascribed them to anj^ peculiar or extraordinary ferocity or wickedness in their character. They sprung entirely from their early commission of unpardonable offences, and the recklessness with which they perpetrated acts of violence and spoliation, the moment that they obtained supreme power. The conclusion to be drawn from this is, not that the progress of innova- tion and social amelioration inevitably leads to wickedness, but that the commission of one crime during its progress necessarily occa- sions another, because it is in the commission of the second tliat impunity for the first is alone looked for; and therefore, that the only way during such trying times to prevent the pro- gress from terminating in disaster, is steadily to adhere to tlie principles of justice and hu- manity; and if violence is once vtnavoidable, to revert to the temper and moderation of hap- pier times, the moment that such a return is practicable. The Jacobin Club, the Dom-daniel where all the bloody scenes of the Revolution were hatch- «d, must ever be an object of interest ami cu- riosity to future ages. The author's picture of it is so graphic, that we shall give it in his own words, for fear of Aveakening their force by translation; it will also serve as a fair speci- men of his style. " Le club des Jacobins etait veritablemcnt le double de la puissance souveraine, et la por- tion la plus cnergique : on ne pouvait assez la rednuler, tant sa susceptibilile etait ex- treme et ses vengeances terribles. II se mon- trait inquiet, pusilianime, mefiant, cruel et feroce; il ne conccvait la liberie qu'avec le concours des prisons, des fers, et a deminoyee dans le sang. Tousles maux, tous les crimes, '.outes les resolutions funcstcs,qirt pendant trois annees desolerent la France, partirent de eel antre d'horreur. Les Jacobins dorainerent avec une tyrannic cd o the general and unparalleled desertion of heir country by the great majority of the lobility and landed proprietors, and their im- )rndent — to give it no severer name — iinion vith foreign powers to regain their pri7."J<'gps )y main force. If this immense and powerful lody of men had remained at home, yielded to he torrent when they could not resist it, and aken advantage of the first pleams of return- ng sense and moderation, to unite with tiie nends of order of every denomination, it is inpossible to doubt that a great barrier against evolutionary violence must have been erected. Jut what could be done by the few remaining riests and royalists, or by the king on the irone, when a hundred thousand proprietors, le strength and hope of the monarch)', de- erted to the enemy, and appeared comliating gainst France under the Austrian eagles? hert was the fatal error. Every measure of •rity directed against them or their de- .dants, appeared justifiable to a people ibonring under the terrors of foreign subjuga- on; if they had remained at home and armed gainst the stranger, as the worst mediator in leir internal dissensions, the public feeling ould not have been so strongly roused against lem, and many of the worst measures of the evolution would have been prevented. The .->mparatively bloodless character of the Eng- sh civil war in the time of Charles I. is in a real measure to be ascribed to the courageous sidence of the landed proprietors at home, I'cn during the hottest of the struggle ; and but ir that intrepid conduct, they might, like the rench noblesse, have been for ever stript of ifir r-.int •<, and the cause of freedom stained r 11' O I Miiiouricr, when he re- d to Paris, to endeavour to stem the tor- Intion. — On that occasion, the •d him in these remarkable p. mi^n of honour in th»* foTintrv would t a^ \ '!••. tdf-'' iiu-'T.i! !'• >ccdily 1)0 rcMr Jii \ic jiUccU 4.:i ih ippnri " Thr ' the pi- : . ..,. . .. e popular cause; the-. f miflvr . •'] ■ ' ■ J.tlllirs in . ff taught them that the jJO'plc, ever ungrate- ful and forgetful of past services, have neithci eyes nor ears but for those who flatter ihera without inlcrinJNvion. They had another rea- son for thfir conddenre, in the enormous ma jority which had recently re-elected Petion to the important situation of mayor of Paris. No less than 14,000 voices had pronounced in his favour, while Robespirrre had only 2.1, Billaud-Varcnnes \i, and Danton 11. The Girondists flattered themselves that their influ- ence was to be measun-d in the same propor- tion; that error was their ruin, for they con- tinued to cling to it down tc the moment when necessity constrained them to see that they stood alone in the commonwealth. Bailly, the virtuous Bailly, that pure spirit who had the misfortune to do so much evil with the best intentions, had only two votes." — Vol. i.p. 130. Thus the Girondists, only a few months be- fore their final arrest and overthrow by the mob of Paris, had fourteen thousand votes, while Robespierre and Danton, who led them out to the slaughter, had only thirty-four. Whence arose this prodigious decline of popu- larity in so short a time, and when they had done nothing in the inter\'ening period to jus- tify or occasion it? Simply from this, that having latterly endeavoured to repress the movement, that instant their popularity dis- solved like a rope of sand, and they were con- signed in a few months to the scalfold by their late noisy supporters. This respectable writer adds his testimony to a fact now generally admitted, that the well- known novel of Faublas gave a correct picture of the manners of France at the outset of the Revolution. In such a corrupt state of society, it is not surprising that political change should have led to the most disastrous results : nor can any thing be imagined much worse than the old regime. "Louvetde Com ti at Paris in 1701, was the son of a jier, and mnd" his debut, not as an advocate, but as ■ m in the employment of Brault, the 1 ..or. He there acquired a taste for literature, which hr ' ' ..... ^1 of I ij n\ \ ' - . i '^-n obtained a tinn. Yon find in ■' ■ ' ' of the manners of . ; till- mode of life <.I 1; ail ■ J , ise It met with a,i liitic respect at the period when .1... I. .p„ ,,f ,i,p jiiory yifns supposed to 1 ■ ' ■- -Vol. i. p. 115. But we ' i 1 he voted for the death ol the king ...•,i„..i ! with a faltering «iep and Iv # he wa^ to put the sr.il l- '\- ir, I ll,,T.- lltl l' !.■ t.l U!' ' ill down, he ntA ia by mj dtHr. an*' cuiivuiceJ that all tli.'i»« who hare re*i!«tH ib 248 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Bovereignty of the people deserve death, my vote is for Death !' " ' Oh, the monster !' broke forth from all sides; 'how infamous!' and general hisses and imprecations attended Egalite as he re- turned to his seat. His conduct appeared so atrocious, that of all the assassins of Septem- ber, of all the wretches of every description who were there assembled, and truly the num- ber was not small, not one ventured to applaud him : all, on the contrary, viewed him with distrust or maledictions; and at the conclu- sion of his vote, the agitation of the assembly was extreme. One would have imagined from the effect it produced, that Egalite, by that single vote, irrevocably condemned Louis to death, and that all that followed it was but a vain formality." — Vol. ii. p. 48. One of the most instructive facts in the whole history of the Revolution, was the una- nimous vote of the assembly on the guilt of Louis. Posterity has reversed the verdict ; it is now unanimously agreed that he Avas inno- cent, and that his death was a judicial murder. That the majority, constrained by fear, misled by passion, or seduced by ambition, should have done so, is intelligible enough ; but that seven hundred men should unanimously have voted an innocent man guilty, is the real phe- nomenon, for which no adequate apology can be found even in the anxieties and agitation of that unhappy period. Like all oiher great acts of national crime, it speedily brought upon it- self its own punishment. It rendered the march of the Revolution towards increasing wicked- ness inevitable, because it deprived its leaders of all hope of safety but in the rule of the mul- litude, supported by acts of universal terror. The result of the vote M'hich, by a majority of forty-seven, condemned Louis to death, is well described : "When the fatal words were pronounced, an explosion of satanic joy was expected from the tribunes : nothing of the kind occurred. A universal stupor took possession of the whole assembly, damping alike the atrocious hurras and the infernal applause. The victory which had been obtained filled the victors with as much awe as it inspired the vanquished with consternation ; hardly was a hollov/ murmur heard; the members gazed at each other in death-like silence ; eveiy one seemed to dread even the sound of his own voice. There is something so over-powering in great events, that those even whose passions they most com- pletely satisfy, are restrained from giving vent to their feelings." — Vol. ii.p. 61. The death of the king, and its effect on the people, is very impressive : "The sight of the royal corpse produced divers sensations in the minds of the specta- tors. Some cut off parts of his dress ; others sought to gather a few fragments of his hair; a few dipped their sabres in his blood ; and many hurried from the scene, evincing the most poignant grief in their countenances. An Englishman, bolder than the rest, threw himself at the foot of the scaffold, dipped his handkerchief in the blood which covered the ground, and disappeared. " In the capital, the great body of the citi- zens appeared to be ovenvhelmedby a genera. stupor : they hardly ventured to look each other in the face in the street ; sadness was depicted in every countenance: a heavy disquietude seemed to have taken possession of every mind. The day following the execution they had not got the better of their consternation, which ap- peared then to have reached the members of the Convention, who Avere astonished and ter- rified at so bold a stroke, and the possible con- sequences with which it might be followed. Immediately after the execution, the body of Louis XVI. was transported into the ancient cemetery of the Madeleine : it was placed in a ditch of six feet square, with its back against the wall of the Rue d'Anjou, and covered with quick-lime, which was the cause of its being so dilficult afterwards, in 1815, to discover the smallest traces of his remains. " The general torpor, without doubt, para- lyzed many minds, but shame had a large effect upon others. It was certaiul}^ a deplo- rable thing to see the king put to death v/ithout the smallest effort being made to save him from destruction ; and on the supposition that such an attempt might have led to his assassination by the Jacobins, even that would have been preferable to the disgraceful tranquillity which prevailed at his execution. I am well aware that all who had emigrated had abandoned the king; but as there remained in the interior so many loyal hearts devoted to his cause, it is astonishing that no one should have shown himself on so rueful an occasion. Has crime then alone the privilege of conferring audacity'' is weakness inseparable from virtue] I can- not believe it, although every thing conspired to favour it at that period, when the bravest trembled and retired into secrecy." — Vol. ii. pp. 13, 44. The Girondists were far from reaping the benefits they expected from the death of the king; Lanjuinais's prophecy in this respect proved correct: it was but the forerunner of their own ruin. "The death of Louis, effected by a combina- tion of all parties, satisfied none. The Giron- dists in particular, as Lanjuinais had foretold, found in it the immediate cause of their ruin. Concessions made to crime benefit none but those who receive them : they make use of them and speedily forget the givers. This was soon demonstrated ; for no sooner was the trial of Louis concluded by his death, than the Ja- cobins commenced their attacks on Roland, th*" minister of the interior, with such vehemence., that on the day after the king's execution he sent in his resignation. "The Girondists did every thing in their power to prevent him from proceeding to this extremity: his wife exerted all her influence to make him retain his situation, offering to share all his labours, and take upon herself the whole correspondence. It was all in vain: he declared that death Avould be preferable to the mortifications he had to undergo ten times a day. What made his friends so anxious to retain him was their conviction that they could find no one to supply his place They clearly saAV their situation, when it was no longer possible to apply a remedy. The THE REIGN OF TERROR. 24V mountain, strong through their weakness, Dverwhchned them : already it broke through every restraint, and the system of terror, so well organized after the revolution of the 10th of August, was put into full activity." — Vol.ii. pp. 153, 154. It has never yet been clearly explained how Robespierre rose to the redoubtable power which he possessed for sixteen months before his death. His contemporaries are unanimous in their declarations that his abilities were ex- tremely moderate, that his courage was doubt- ful, and his style of oratory often tiresome and perplexed. How, if all this be true, did he succeed in rising to the head of an assembly composed of men of unquestioned abilit}-, and ruled by the oldest and most audacious orators in France ] How did he compose the many and admirable speeches, close in reasoning, energetic in thought, eloquent in expression, which he delivered from the tribune, and which history has preserved to illustrate his namel Supposing them to have been written by others, how did he maintain his authority at the Ja- cobin Club, whose noctural orgies generally took a turn which no previous foresight could have imagined, and no ordinary courage could withstand] How did he conduct himself in such a manner as to destroy all his rivals, and, at a time when all were burning, with ambi- tion, contrive to govern France with an au- thority unknown to Louis XIV.'? The truth is, Robespierre must have been a man of most extraordinary ability; and the depreciatory testimony of his contemporaries probably pro- ceeded from that envy which is the never-fail- ing attendant of sudden and unlooked-for ele- vation. The account of the system he pursued, in order to raise himself to supreme power, is pregnant with instruction. "It was at this period (March, 1793) that Robespierre began to labour seriouslj^ at the plan which was destined to lead him to the dictatorship. It consisted, in the first instance, in getting rid of the Gironde by means of the Mountain ; and secondly, in destroying by their aid every man of the ancient regime, capable by his rank, his talent, or his virtue, of stand- ing in his way. It was indispensable to reduce to his own level all the heads above himself which he suffered to exist, and among those which it was necessary to cut off, he ranked in the first class those of the queen and of Ega- lite. Having done this, his next object was to destroy the Mountain itself: he resolved to decimate it in its highest summits, in such a manner that he alone would remain, and no- thing oppose hi.s govi?rning France with abso- lute sway. Robespierre at the same time as- sailed with mortal anxiety all the military re- putations which might stand in his way; and, in the end, death delivered him from every ge- apral from whose opposition he had any thing to apprehend. "That this frightful plan existed, is but too certain ; that it was executed in most of its parts, is historically known. That it did not Anally succeed, was mnrely owing to the cir- eumstance that the Jacobins, made aware nf their danger before it was too late, assailed him when he was unprepared, and overturned him in a moment of weakness."— Vol. ii, pp. 192—195. Fouquier-Tinville, the well-known public accuser in the revolutionary tribunal, is drawn in the following graphic terms : — " Fouquier-Tinville, a Picard by birth, bom in 1747, and procurcur in the court of the Chatelet, exhibited one of those extraordinary characters in which there is such a mixture of bad and strange qualities as to be almost incon- ceivable. Gloomy, cruel, atrabilious: the un- sparing enemy of every species of merit or virtue ; jealous, artful, vindictive : ever ready to suspect, to aggravate the already overwhelm- ing dangers of innocence, he appeared imper- vious to every feeling of compassion or equity; justice in his estimation consisted in condem- nation ; an acquittal caused him the most se- vere mortification ; he was never happy but when he had sent all the accused to the scaf- fold: he prosecuted them with an extreme ncharnement, made it a point of honour to repel their defences: if they were firm or calm in presence of the judges of the tribunal, his rage knew no bounds. But with all this hatred to what generally secures admiration and esteem, he showed himself alike insensible to the allure- ments of fortune and the endearments of do- mestic life : he was a stranger to every species of recreation: women, the pleasures of the table, the theatres, had for him no attractions. Sober in his habits of life, if he ever became intoxicated, it was with the commonest kind of Avine. The orgies in which he participated had all a political view, as, for example, to procure ^ feu de file ; on such occasions he was the first to bring together the judges and juries and to provoke bacchanalian orgies. What h3 required above every thing was human blood. " A fcii, de file, in the Jacobin vocabulary was the condemnation to death of all the ac- cused. When it took place, the countenance of Fouquier Tinville became radiant; no one could doubt that he was completely happy; and to attain such a result he spared no pains. He was, to be sure, incessanth' at work : he went into no society, hardly ever showed him- self at the clubs : it was not there, he said, that his post lay. The only recreation which he allowed himself was to go to the place of exe- cution, to witness the pangs of his victims: on such occasions his gratification was ex- treme. "Fouquier Tinville might have amassed a large fortune: he was, on the contrary, poor, and his wife, it is said, actually died of starva- tion. He lived without any comlorts: his whole furniture, sold after his decease, only produced the sum of five hundred francs. He was distinguished by the appearance of po- verty and a real contempt of numey. No species of seduction could reach him: he waj a rock, a mass of steel, insensible lo every thing which usually touches men, to beauty and riches : he became animated only at the prospect of a murder which might be com- mitted, anil on such occasions he was almosi handsome, so radiant was the expression of his visage. "The friend of Robespierre, who fully ap predated his valuable qualities, he was ih 248 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. I'epositorv of his inmost thoui^hts. The Dic- tator asked liiin one day. wliat he could oiler him most attractive, wiieii supreme power was fully concentrated in' his hands. ' Kepose,' replied Fouquier Tinville, 'but not till it is proved tliat not another head remains to fall; incessant labour till then.' "—Vol. ii. 21G, 217. On readinf^ these and similar passages re- garding the Reign of Terror, and the charac- ters which then rose to eminence, one is tempted to ask, is human nature the same un- der such extraordinary circumstances as in ordinary times; or is it possible, that by a certain degree of political excitement, a whole nation may go mad, and murders be perpe- trated without the actors being in such a state as to be morally responsible for their actions ] In considering this question, the conclusion which is irresistibl}' impressed on the mind by a consideration of the progress of the French Revolution, is, that the error lies more in the head than in the heart, and that it is by the incessant application of false principles to the understanding, that the atrocious actions which excite the astonishment of posterity are committed. Without doubt there are in all troubled times a host of wicked and aban- doned men, who issue from their haunts, stimulated by cupidity, revenge, and every evil passion, and seek to turn the public cala- mities to their individual advantage. But neither the leaders nor the majority of their followers are composed of such men. The ■polUkal fanatics, those who do evil that good may come, — who massacre in the name of hu- manity, and imprison in that of public free- dom, — these are the men who are most to be dreaded, and who, in general, acquire a peril- ous sway over the minds of their fellow citi- zens. When vice appears in its native deformity, it is abhorred by all : it is by as- suming the language and working upon the feelings of virtue that it acquires so fatal an ascendant, and that men are led to commit the most atrocious actions, in the belief that they are performing the most sacred of duties. The worst characters of the Revolution who sur- vived the scaffold, were found in private life to have their humanity unimpaired, and to lead peaceable and inolTensive lives. Barrere is now, or was very recently, at Brussels, where his time is devoted to declaiming on the ne- cessity of entirely abolishing capital punish- ments ; and yet Barrere is the man who pro- posed the famous decree for the annihilation of Lyons, beginning with the words "Lyons faisait la guerre a, la liberie : Lyons n'est plus;" and constantly affirmed, that "le vais- '♦"au de la Revolution ne peut arriver au port que sur une ocean du sang." The origin and composiiion of the famous Commitlee of Public Safely, and the manner in which it gradually engrossed the whole powers of the state, and became concentrated in the persons of the Triumvirate, arc thus given: "It was on the Gth April, 17'J3," says our author, "that the terrible Committee of Public Safety was constituted: which speedily drew 10 itself all the powers in the state. It did not manifest its ambition at the outset: it was jseful at starting: it exhibited no symptoms of an ambitious disposition, but that pruden conduct ceased after the great revolt of 31 si May. Then the Convention, its committees/ and in an especial manner that of General Safety, fell under the yoke of the Committee of Public Safety, which performed the part of the Council of Ten and the Three inquisitors in the Venetian state. Its power was mon- strous, because it was in some sort concealed; because amidst the multitude of other com- mittees it veiled its acts ; because, renewing itself perpetually among men of the same stamp, it constantly destroyed the personal re- sponsibility of its members, though its mea- sures were ever the same. " The Committee of Public Safety terminated by being concentrated, not in the whole of its members, but in three of their number. Robes- pierre was the real chief, but half concealed from view ; the two others were Coulhon and ■ St. Just. There was between these monsters ! a perfect unanimity down to the moment of , their fall: in proportion as the Mountain was divided and its chiefs perished, the alliance ■ between them became more firmly cemented. I have every reason to believe that they had resolved to perpetuate their power in unison, and under the same title which Bonaparte afterwards adopted at the ISth Brumaire. Robespierre, Couthon, and St.. Just were to' have formed a supreme council of three con- suls. The first, with the perpetual presidency, was to have been intrusted with the depart- ments of the exterior, of justice, and of the finances : Couthon was to have had the in- terior; and St. Just the war portfolio, which suited his belligerent inclination." — p. 229. One of the most singular circumstances in all civil convulsions, when they approach a crisis, is the mixed and distracted feelings of the great majorit}'', even of the actors, in the anxious scenes which are going forward. A signal instance occurred on occasion of the revolt of 31st May, which overturned the Gi- rondists, and openly established the supremacy of the armed force of Paris over the National Convention. This eventful crisis is thus power- fully described by our author : — " The assembly, in a body, rose to present itself at the great gate to go out upon the Place de Carousel. We were all uncovered, in token of the danger of the country: the president alone wore his hat. The officers of the as- sembly preceded him : he ordered them t clear a passage. Henriot, at that decisive moment, breaking out into open revolt, ad- vanced on horseback at the head of his aides- de-camp. He drew his sabre and addressed us in a tone, the arrogance of which was de- serving of instant punishment — 'You have ni> orders to give here,' said he, ' return to yonr posts, and surrender the rebellious deputies to the people.' Some amongst us insisted: the president commanded his officers to seize that rebel. Henriot retired fifteen paces, and ex- claimed: ' Cannoniers, to your pieces!' Tli troops that surrounded him at the same time made preparations to charge us. Already the muskets were raised to take aim, the hussars drew their sabres, the artillerymen inclined their lighted matches towards their pieces. .^' THE REIGN OF TERUoR. two liis spectacle, Ilcrault dc Sechcllcs, the prcsi- (•nt, was disconccrlcd, turned about, and we ■ wed him. He went to all the other f^ates, wed bj- the t^amc escort: traversed the irdens of the Tuileries, and tlie Place de arousel, in vain seeking to escape : at every sae a barrier of cannon and bayonets opposed IS exit. "At the same time, — who would believe it! e greater part of the troops, with their hats 1 the point of their ba3-oncts, were shouting: rive la Convention Nationale!' 'Vive la f publique !' ' Peace — Laws — a Constitution !' inie cried out: 'Vive la Montagne!' a still nallor imi; iler,' A la mort Brissot, Gensonne, ergniaii I. (niadet!' A few voices exclaimed, 'urge the Convention! let the blood of the icked How !"— Pp. 379, 380. Vet though the opinions of the national lard, the armed force of Paris, were thus vided, and a minority only supported the olcnt measures of Hcnriot and the insurgents, is minoritj', by the mere force of unity of tion, triumphed over all the others, and ade their unwilling fellow-soldiers the in- Timents in imposing violence on the Icgisla- re, and dragging its most illustrious mem- rs to prison. Such was the French Revo- tion ; and such is the ascendency which in I extreme cases of public agitation is acquired audacious, united wickedness, over irre- lute, (!ivi^d virtue. It is in!"i .'Sting to examine the line of con- ct adopted by^the moderate members of the scmbly after this crisis, which prostrated leL'i^latiire before the municipality and me'! : of Paris. The author gives us I ; account of the principles by jich he himself and the majority of the mem- rs were actuated : — "OverwlKliiK'd with consternation as all men pr' !>y the audacity of the revolu- ni vinced of our impotence at I It tiiip', (lor virtue has but feeble nerves, '! none of that vigour which was manifested I I only by aniir|uitv. but even by our fathers.) "I ■ ■ ■ • , IIS than a siicnt, .11 the end might ite til 1. if all whom the fury of the Moun* n had '. ^f e mil- d, ■ tll.i 1 V : -V. I lolvcd to assume the np, IltT'Trrir.', -- ■': '■ ill'- .li . I many n . and k' ■ hop'- of fiiiaily uveiluruiiig that abuiiuiia- • tvr.innv. '11.1'. d this rejiohnion, I immrili- ly p! "■■''n it. I •• ' th*- a i I il with ing SI- 'T. 1 livd (III ins . ; • wuh Danlnn, ' llien. thr l ihat by I • aid of th< .i, . , . ii, I wa.i 'pared for every storm which van approach* » »■ 'This line of condurt, whirli w.m nnmueii I t)ie same time by Durand. dirau. liupuis, Demartin, and a number o» others, perfectly succeeded. We were soon fortrottcn, while the remnants of the Jac«)bin f. i| each other without nvrcy; w<- , ■ t over in silence for fifteen months, and that happy stale of oblivion proved our salvation ; for all at once, changing our tactics, and de- claring against Robespierre, ot "-cted vote gave his opponents the , and soon drew after it the whole Assemiiiy. In less than an hour after it was given, wc became an authority which it was necessary to con- sult, and which, continually ii. . ' ->- cause it had struck in at the forti it, spcedilj' made itself master of thai Miiniine authority which the Jacobins were no luii'i-r in a condition to dispute. "I know that our conduct is blame;!, and was blamed by many persons. A number of knights of the saloon exclaim against it : I will only ask, which of them, with all their boast- ing, did any thing useful at the fail of Robes- pierre ? "It is necessary in difTiciilt times to dis- tinguish obstinate folly from mi';i " ',•; there would be no wisdom in lo overthrow the pyramids of Egypt by striking them with the hand : but in beginning with the upper tier, and successively pulling down all those which compose the mass, the object might be accomplished." — Vol. iii. p. 78. This passage involves a question of the utmost moment to all true patriots in periods of public danger from civil convulsion ; which is, what should be their conduct when they are openly assailed by an anarchical faction ! The answer to this is to be found in the situation of the parties, at the time when the collision takes place. If supreme authority, that of the armed force, has not passed into the hands of the anarchists, ever)' effort should be made lo retain it in the possession f properly ; but if that is iinpi' .l pursued by these members ol the Convention at that period is not only the mo'-' '■"' ' "t. but in the end the most useful. To ron- .■■r" is a i^ " ■-'■ ' • 'i- . as to I . / ol a naliiui arc so : e in<'-'i!>ittl>* i>r :ini>ri'i :ij it 1 • for the : >' •-, tii;il a •.I. 'I'll- i - "TIf I. , : 1 ^ ;- 'li, ■•n the patriotic party artrd wiih i- •• • ' ■ • .u vernrd wilii the inosit despoiic i i ' •■•'•■•■'•,• for the •.•'- • •• t lived I ■- ..| w ii.it It ■ ' "T it arc II '" th'Mr utmoHt to prrvrnt • vcrnrn'-nt, of whatever ever quarter, should be ei '• rnrr. T' ' ■• iii.iii »n.> -ii"U,J brine : "\'c9, I repeal U: ibai cm has np re^eta a&o ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. blance to any other. I have seen the dcspot- ism of Napoleon • I have witnessed the terror of 1815; paltry imitations of those tremendous years ! France in 1793 and 1794 was furrowed in every direction by the revolutionary thun- der; the most insignificant commune ha:iger borne aloft, but on foot or in a hackney oach, I forget which. " The most odious part of the ceremony con- isted in this, that while the worship of the oddess was going on in the nave and in the mctuarv, every chapel round the cathedral, arefully veiled by means of tapestry hangings, scame the scene of drunkenness, licentious- ess and obscenity. No words can convey an lea of the scene ; those who witnessed it alone in form a conception of the mixture of disso- iteness and blasphemy which took place. Pros- tates abounded in every quarter; the mysteries " Lesbos and Gnidos were celebrated without lame before assembled multitudes. The ling made so much noise that it roused the idignation of Robespierre himself; and oq the ly of the execution of Chaumette, who had resided over the ceremony, he said that he iserved death if it was only for the abomi- itions he had permitted on that occasion." — ol. iii. p. 19.5, 196. The concluding months of the Reign of error are thus vividly depicted: — " I have now arrived at the solen&n period hen the evil rapidly attained ito height, by f human events, which r after a limited period, h not wiihf)ut leavinsj on some occasions .,, .ri.s of it^j passage. The revolution- daily increased, in consequence of the ' ' rppirators of would 1. d that these had but one body, one soul, to surh were they united in their nclionn. The :i in the Assembly, the Committees of iu: ■'.• and of (Jrnnr. ' ^ ' u V ■ Revolutionary I of Paris, Ihe (v'lubs of liie J.icoIhim shaken ; and all the youih of the kingdom driven to the frontiers, less to uphold the in- tegrity of France, than to protect them':i'lvcs against the ju^t vengeance which awaii'-d iliem both within and without. "All bowed the neck before this gigantic assemblage of wickedness; virtue resigned itself to death or dishonour. 'I" is no medium between falling the v . , such atrocities or taking a part in thnm. A uni- versal disquietude, a permanent anxiety settled over the realm of France; encriry appeared only in the extremity of rcsi:,^lntlon ; it was evident that everj' Frenchman pri lerrcd death to the effort of resistance, and that the nation would submit to this horrid yoke as long as it pleased the Jacobins to keep it on. " Was then all hope of an amelioration of our lot finally lost? — Unquestionably it was, if it had depended only on the efforts of the virtuous classes; but as it is the natural effect of suffering to induce a remedy, so it was id the shock of the wicked among themselves that our only hope of salvation remained ; and although nearly a year was destined to elapse before this great consummation was effected, yet from the beginning of 1794, men gifted with foresight began to hope that heaven would at length have pity on them, throw the apple of discord among their enemies, and strike them with that judicial blindness which is the instruinent it makes use of to punish men and nations." — Vol. iii. p. 230. The first great symptom of this approaching discord was the quarrel between Danton and Robespierre, which terminated in the df'sinic- tion of the former. It was impossi! wo such characters, both eminently . is, and bo'.h strongly entrenched in popular attach- ment, could long continue to hold on their course together; when their common enemies were destroyed, and the : ■■( the Revolution scattered, they If i upon each other. It is the strongest proof of the ability of Robespierre that he wn^ ('•'■• '■> crush an adversary who had the pre< t lum in the path of popularity, who j aiy brilliant qualities of which h'- >•; whose voice of ihiindiT had k terror into the en'mus of the li. i;id who wa.1 .supported by a large and powerful irty in the capital. It is in \ irh , a<'hi''V»'rn»'f)l. f'> "pTtk of ihr e ol ' r the irilaiin ol hn sj 1 t IS lluis drsi-ril>ed — Rol)cspierr«' -T the asseniMy on occasion of tin- imj'iarum'nt of his rival. "'Thf Orlrnns pnriv was ihi* first which •IS Paris, Ihe Cordeliers; all, accordm:^' t.i their ffTcnl destinations, conspired vrly bring about the death of the kin;:, ' - row rif thn monarchy; thm all ih- )p" in ; fni.'i: e < . who, ii ults, and even their crimes, were, fairly lough, entitled to l>c placed comparatively nong the upright characters of the Con- rn.:oii. " This combinalinn nf wicked men had fille'! rancc with terrror; by ih^m opulml cilics ere overturned ; the Inb ■'.■! >- i •■f i'" ........ unes decimated ; the > ' nifans of ' ' ' ;riciiltnrr, ■ e foundationi of every »i»ccica of^ properly j ctlorts of his partisans to ruio s»- hoi circuiii That cnmin.il parly •ilways avail'" ! •• .111(1 the re! 'i'lirni ■ ;,' lo di I forcp. It sank bclore Ihe rn> <-.,it. ... I .,,,).i,r virtue. In .i . nces. Orleans f.i iinir Perier and llie Doctrinaires, who have arfsted thfl people in the middle of their glorious career aM ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. and turned to gall and wormwood the sweet fruiis of popular conquest; Guizot, the Uuke dc Broglift, and the Doctrinaires, ascribe it to the mad ambition of the democrats, and the in- cessant cflbrts they have made to agitato and distract the public mind; Saint Chamans and the Koyalists trace it to the fatal deviation from the principle of legitimacy, and the inter- minable dissensions to which the establishment of a right in the populace of Paris to choose their sovereign must necessarily lead ; while Marshal Sou'lt has a clear remedy for all the disorders of the ceuntrjs and without stopping to inquire whether they are revolting from starvation, ambition, or experienced evils, cuts them down by grape-shot, and charges their determined bands b}' squadrons of cuirassiers. Men in this country may vary in the causes to which they ascribe these evils, according to the side to which they incline in politics ; but in regard to their existence and magnitude, af- ter such a concurrence in the testimony of un- willing witnesses, no doubt can be entertained b}'^ Tory, Reformer, or Radical. One single fact is sufficient to place in the clearest light the disastrous effect of this con- vulsion upon the internal industry of the coun- trj'. It appears from the returns of the French Commerce lately published, that their imports before and after the Three Glorious Days stood thus: Francs. •General imports, 1830, 638,338,000 Do. 1831, 519,825,000 Decrease, 118,513,000 Imports for home consump- tion, 1830, Do. 1831, 489,242,000 374,188,000 Decrease, 111,054,000 Thus it appears, that although the Revolu- tion did not break out till July 1830, so that one-half of the imports of that year was affect- ed by the revolt of July, yet still the general imports in 1831, as compared with 1830, had fallen nearly n fifth, and those for home con- sumption about afiurlh in a single year ! Such is the deplorable effects of popular triumph upon public industry, and the suffering and starvation brought upon the poor by the crimi- nal ambition of their demagogues. The progress of events, and, aboA-e all, the necessity under which Marshal Soult was laid, of quelling the insurrection of June, 1832, by "a greater number of armed men than com- batled the armies of Prussia or Russia at Jena or Austerlitz,"* and following up his victory hy the proclamation of a state of siege, and or- dinances more arbitrary than those which were the immediate cause of the fall of Charles X., have gone far to disabuse the public mind on this important subject. In proof of this, we cannot refer to stronger evidence than is af- forded by the leading Whig journal of this city, one of the warmest early supports of the Re- folntion of July, and which is honoured by the eommunicalions of all the official men in the * Sarrans. Scottish metropolis. The passage is as ho nourable to their present candour, as their fop mer intemperate and noisy declamation in favour of democratic insurrection was indica tive of the slender* judgment, and limited his- torical information, which they bring to bear on political questions. It is contained in the preface with which the " Caledonian Mercury" ushers in to their readers a series of highly in. teresting and valuable papers, by a most re- spectable eye-witness of the Parisian revolt: " It has appeared to us desirable to lay be- fore our readers a view of a great event, or rather concatenation of events, so different from any which they have hitherto been ac- customed to have presented to them; and we have been the more easily induced to give in- sertion to these papers, because hitherto one side of the question has been kept wholly in the shade, — and because differing as v,-e do, toto calo, from the author in general political principle, we are, nevertheless, perfectly atone with him in regard to the real origin or jnimum mobile of the Revolution of July, as well as the motives and character of the chief personages who benefited by that extraordinary event The truth is, that, in this countr)', ii-c prcjiidgtd the case, and decided before inquiry, upon the re- presentations of one side, which had the ad- vantage of victory to recommend and accrolil the story which it deemed it convenient to tell : nor — first impressions being proverbially ■ strong — has it hitherto been found possible to; persuade the public to listen with patience to any thing that might be alleged in justification, ' or even in extenuation of the party which had had the misfortune to play the losing game. Of late, however, new light has begun to break in upon the public. All have been made sen- sible that the Revolution has retrograded ; that its movement has been, crab-like, backwards; and that 'the best of republics' has shownit- self the n-orsf, because the least secure, of aclrnddcS' potis)us: while the 'throne, surrounded byre- publican institutions' — that monster of fancy, engendered by the spirit of paradoxical anti- thesis — has proved a monster in reality, broken down all the fantastic and baseless fabrics by which it was encircled, and swept away the very traces of the vain restraints imposed upon it. The empire, in short, has been recon- structed out of the materials cast up by a de- mocratical movement ; with this dificrence only, that, instead of a Napoleon, we now see a Punchinello at the head of it ; and hence the same public, which formerly believed Louis Philippe to be a sort of Citizen Divinity, now discover in that personage only a newly-cre- ated despot M-ithout any of the accessories or advantages which give, even to despotism, some hold on public opinion. A reaction has accordingly taken place: and men are in con- sequence prepared to listen to things again'' which, previously, they, adderwise, closed thi^ ears, and remained deaf to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely." But although from the very first we clearly discerned and forcibly pointed out the disas- trous effects on the freedom, peace, and Iran- quillitv, first of France, and then of >• lice there were lor the ordinances of Charles X. Ve consitlercd them as a roup d'etat justified by cccssity, and the evident peril in which Jharles stood of losing his crown, and throw- ng the nation back to the horrors of revolu- on, if he did otherwise, but as confessedly an ^fraction of the constitution. Upon this sub- let we are now better informed: The j^reat nd energetic ability of the royalist party has een exerted in France to unfold the real rounds of the question, and it is now mani- st that the ordinances were not only imperi- usly called for by state necessity, but strictly istified by the Charter and the constitutional iw of France. Many of those who now ad- lit the lamentable elTects of the overthrow of harles X. arc not disposed to go this length, nd are not aware of the grounds on which it rested. Let such persons attend to the fol- >wing considerations: — The king's defence of the ordinances is con- ined in the following proposition: — 1. That by an article of the Charter, granted • Louis XVIII. to the French, and the founda- on of the constitution, power is reserved to e king to make such regulations and ordi- inces as are necessary for the execution of e laws, and the safety of the slate, 2. That matters, through the efforts of the evolutionists, had been brought to such a i iss, that the ordinances of July were necessary for the execution of the laws, and the safety ■ the state." The Mth article in the Charter is in these rras — " Reserving to the king the power to ake regulations and ordinances necessary to sure the eiecution of the laws, and the safely the stale" On these'words we will not in- re, by attempting to abridge, the argument .M. l'>\TMiinet. '•Til-: ;ill>'.,'ed treason is a violation of the lartcr; and how can the Charter have been ■ '•• ' 1 'I'..; exercise of a power, of which ;lic use I It has been asserted re- ir», and fur tht in/rly nf tiir natr. \ .. it the laws, and the safely of ■e words demand attention. They vithont a motive, nor I and f'irr<* b'-in^' uri'' •: will* I . .nor, well .. . i- , = , iigs, between which there was still more Terence than analogy. 'If the first words had sufficed, the laifpf led. It >ttld not 1 1US, that II of the < derstood that tht ta/tttf of thr ttait was in i£>- tlte cxlraordinnry led by the \i>h nrlirk of the Chnrter}' rt was received without opposition ■ liberal part of the Chamber. Prince lac has adduced two instances, among a f others which might be adduced, of the i which these acts of the crown wf ro y the Liberal party in France. "The r,' says the National, '"without the ■ ri'.-].-, would have b(cn an absurdity." r the Charter said, and tens riaht .'ic and mine. tint I h:iv It is quite another question, whether it wa» wise or constitutional to have conferred this power on the cmwn. Huflice it t " 'Mt dill possess it; that its exnh. tuok ihi- : < ' '1 prevent th'-i" "" ' • inalinR the i ' 'h" 'i which their advir . irp"< hati i» lie power. ; On this .Hubject we <■ quote lb- ■''•'■' ■" ■' '■'■■ I the Vis .... . .Iitn«c. SI.S4. Pnllfiiae : dlfclalina to arbiirary n powvr a* lilMrQ aiiribal- ' ofib* conitiiunon. f r 258 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. i "The Ordinances of July, and the sedition which followed them, wci-e no more the cause of the Kcvolution of July than the dismissal of M. IS'eckar, and the storming of the Bastile, were the cause of the Kevolution of 17S9. I see in both these events the first acts of a Re- volution, of which the causes had existed long before, but not the origin of that Revolution itself. You might just as well say that the battle of Arbela was the cause of the ruin of Darius : as if, when the enemy had invaded your territory, and penetrated to the heart of your dominions, you had any chance of safety by laying down your arms and submitting to his terms — as if it was not better to risk a struggle wliich would save you, if it was gained, and renders you no worse than you were before, if it is lost. Such was the posi- tion of Charles X. He is unjustly accused of having committed suicide ; but there are many others to whom the reproach can with more reason be applied. "Louis XVIII. committed suicide on his race, Avhen he caused his ministers, in 1817, to bring forward a democratic law for the election of Deputies to Parliament, drawn in such a manner as gave little chance of success to the real friends of the monarchy, and when he created sixty Peers to hinder the reparation of that fatal step when it was yet time. " The Chamber of Peers committed suicide, when, with a childish desire for popularity, they joined themselves to the Opposition (an unnatural union) to overturn the minister, who stood out as the last defender of mo- narchical and aristocratic principles, and to give a triumph to liberal ideas. They have received their reward in the overthrow of the hereditary Peerage. " They committed suicide, the Royalists of every shade and description, who enrolled themselves under the Liberal banners, from whence, after the triumph was completed, they were ignominiously expelled. " The courtiers committed suicide when they weakly joined the Liberals, not seeing that the principles of thaA T)arty are inconsist- ent with their existence. "The crowd of commercial and industrious persons committed suicide, when, become the soldiers and pioneers of Liberalism, they at- tacked with all their might, and finally over- turned, that constitution Avhich had conferred such blessings on them, and prosperity on their country, and under Avhich France had enjoyed a prosperity without example. "It is in the ifaults of these parties, in the situation of parties anterior to the Ordinances which resulted from these faults, that \\c must seek f(ir the causes of the catastrophe, and not in the faults of Charles X. or his Ordinances. It is evident that the event has not created the situation, hut only brought it to light; that his sceptre did not fall in pieces at the first stroke, from being then for the first time assailed, but because the blow unfolded the rottenness of the heart, brought about by anterior causes." —St. Cliamans, 3, 4. We had begim to underline the parts of this striking passage, which bear in an obvious manner on the recent events in this country, now, alas ! beyond the reach of redemptic but we soon desisted. Every word of it a plies to our late clianges ; and demonstrates! coincidence between the march of revolutii in the two countries, which is almost mirac lous. At the distance of about ten years, o liberal Tories and revolutionary Whigs ha' followed every one of the steps of the Jacobi and Doctrinaires of France. While they we hastening down the gulf of perdition at a g. lop, we followed at a canter, and have adopt every one of the steps which there rendered l downward progress of the Revolution irretric able, and spread unheard-of miserj' thron every part of France. We too have had R( alists of every shade inclining to liberal idea and the courtiers entering into alliance \r their enemies, and a crowd of commercial a manufacturing citizens combining to overtu the constitution under which they and thi fathers had, not for fifteen, but an hnndr and fifty years, enjoyed unheard-of prosperit and the Crown bringing forward a new a highly democratical system of election ; a the concurrence of the Peers forced by threatened creation of sixty riiembers. Hj ing sown the same seed as the French, can', hope to reap a difl^erent crop"? May Heav avert from these realms the last and dread catastrophe to which these measures led the other side of the Channel ! With regard to the conduct of Charles after ascending the throne, the following . count is given by the same writer: — " The goodness of Charles X., his love his people, his beneficence, his affability, . pietyj his domestic virtues, doubtless ha placed his private character beyond the rea: of attack. Let us see whether his public cc duct justifies any more the accusations of enemies. " On ascending the throne, he resisted : natural desire of giving the direction of affa to his political confidants, and, sacrificing i; private afi"ections to his public dut)-, he tained the administration of his deceased b ther who had raised France to so high a pii of happiness. When, shortly after, pu! opinion, misled by the press, became wf. of the prosperity of France, and overturned its madness the ministers who had restoi its prosperity within, and regained its consi ration without, did Charles X. make use any coup d'etat to maintain in his govemni' the principles which he deemed necessarj' the salvation of France 1 No. He yieUk he sacrificed all his own opinionsthe chani his ministers and his syslem, and in good la embraced the new course which was p scribed to him. He conceded every thing tl' was demanded. As the reward of the ma' sacrifices made to opinion, he was promises peaceable, beloved, and cherished exisf"' But bitter experience soon taught him what was conceded passed for nothing, I'l ther was considered only as the means of '• tainingfresh concessions; that the parly whi' he hoped to have satisfied, multiplied onC'j mand on another, moved incessantly forw: from session to session, and evidently WOM not stop till it had fallen with him into '• A THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 860 |alf of drmocracy; that public opinion, that II to say, id tyrant, the prcst, was soon as much i*nlaicd at the new ministers as it had 1 t those which proceded them; tiiat his ernmcnt was harassed with as ijieat ob>ia- les as before ; that the sacniice made was (lercforc useless, and that the system on ■ ' — 'ist his better judgment, he had id of being followed by the ad- iiiil.ii,'f> wluch had been promised, was in ct precipitalin? him into those evils, the rcsight of which had at first inclined him to contrary system. Charles X., confirmed by that essay in his ■<;t iil'MS. reverted then to his own opinions, id iIk" men who shared them ; and, whatever dumny may assert to the contrary, neither ose men nor those opinions were contrary the charter. The real A'iolators of the arler were to be found in the majority of c Chamber of Deputies; in the 2«1 who re- sed to respect the constitutional right of the inarch to choose his ministers, and who re resolved to force hitm to dismiss them, luch they could not allege a single illegal t of which thej' had been guilty. And, in ilh, their administration was perfectly legal (d constitutional, down to the promulgation I the Ordinances, on which opinions are so h divided, and which necessity alone dic- •o prevent the crown being taken ofl' the Ijid of the sovereign. !• I,ct the truth then be proclaimed boldly. to the Ordinances, Charles X. merited . . ach as little in his public as his private ij-. I may defy his most implacable enemies libellers, who have with such .1 fallen victim, to point out one ni gnevance, or single illegal act of his \\ .. reign. Are there any more reproaches \e to the family who surrounded him ? find, on the i .in them an as- ff all (h** '.f ih" noblest le. If . , . ritance I n llr race, are lost to us by our ingrati- thcir faces; instead of a blood-thirsty tyranl a beneficent monarch, bravidy enduring the rms of a ■ ( ; and bc- ■ the r. , itie conti- nent, they had secured the interest, and won •f the citizf-ns. M. St. Cliamans the affection, of ail fi "Were, then," . "the Ordinances the ca ib which ensued ! Yes! ;: ■', ■ useless — if liie throne and tne <-■ n ^ were not in danger; or if, though i.. ..:...,< r, they could have been saved without a cvup (fetat. Not, if they were necessary and una- voidable; if the throne, the dynasty, thr C.>n- I stitulion, were about to jierish; if the ill. pal attacks of the enemies of the monarchy had left the king no other resource but a des- perate effort. What signifies whether you perish of the operation, or the progress of the disease ? " What was the situation of affairs at the epoch of the Ordinances ? On that depends the solution of the question. "The Chamber had been disso]ved,'because the majority was hostile; the elections had sent back a majority still more numerous and hostile; the Chamber was to assemble on the 3d August. " Charles X. could not govern France with that Chamber, but by composing a ministry in harmony with the majority of its members ; that is, by assuming nearly the same men, who, after the 7th August, formed the cabinet of Louis Philippe, and adopting the same system; for such a ministry could not have existed a day without conceding the same democratic demands which were granted in the modified charter of August 7ili. We may judge, then, of the situation in which Charles X. would have been placed, by that in which we now see Louis Philippe. Now, if, in the short space of eighteen months three ailininis- tratinns have been oveilurned; if the throne itself is shaken — without autlioriiy, without force, without consideration — what iniiNi have been the fate of the royally of Charles X. ! If ■' liberal party has acted in this manner by a whuin thev re?ard<"«l as their own — the ir own cxpcrienc of the this city fiiliv corri ■ill the ^ ■» of ihc rcvtilm ;', ; if, in ^i -o nv"> '"'"s to ; ..our, :hni princ*' has Iwen > throw them out c . When he tirst ;i «|, J-'-""- ' •■' !>y ihe i' *y. t>V Ihc I '. and u ... ■ tVt^t'*^fi\ ■ p|is wli.i''-'. r ■ iiid his nii;iits ; if . ... MO, t,, lip-Ill even and to hiv i>wm .11 Kiev have ■•nrn pnnrf. t of their haired and I extent and bf; • montht sooner t .lul th- I -■ -I Charles X. Mi'ir r- and a chamber ■ t'^i by the Rcvwl«ln>uu.U arui»pcd Iruiu , inico, would have found himicil iicir.ym ih« «l Uiuia .• «T I.) ( ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. name position as Louis XVI. in 1792. The result wouhl have been the same. If, then, the danger of destruction awaited him equally, whichever course he adopted, it was far better to perish when combating like^a king of France than in weakly yielding. An open strife oflered at least the chance of safety ; con- cessions oflered none." — St. Cha/natis, 11, 12. " And that mccfsily is a sufficient ground for such violent measures as coups d'etat, cannot surely be denied by those whose subsequent conduct has been entirely founded on that basis. What authorized them to rnvolt against the authority of the kingi They answer, necessity, in default of constitutional means of resistance. Who gave them a right to change the dynasty ? They answer, necessity. Who authorized them to overturn the charter sworn to bv all the French 1 Necessity. Who authorized them to mutilate the chamber of peers, and to change into a life-rent their rights of eternal property? They answer, necessity. Necessity is their sole law: and, if necessity justifies measures evidently calculated to over- turn, not only the throne but the constitution, with what reason can it be pretended that it docs not justify a measure intended to pre- serve both r'—/6ie transportations which followed the 18ih Fructidor; that having reappeared aAer an interval of twenty years, it destroyed the ministry of 1819, and shook the throne of the Ri'sioration ; that it overturned succcs- Bively the ministry of Villcle, of Marlignac, and after that at one fell swoop the ministry, the throne, the charier, and the constitutional monarchy; that since that lime it has slain the ministry of the Duke de Broglio and Gui- tot, and of M. Lafitir ; the two last in a few inonihs, and the thii'! lias no better lease of life than the popular tliir.uc. That is to say, during twenty years that the press has beep i unfettered since 1789, it has uniformly come . to pass, that in a short lime it has either or«|i ( turned the authority of government, or beead overturned by it, through a violent coup d'etat, It was the shock of these opposing powei^( each of which felt that its existence could be secured only by the destruction of its enemy which produced the terrible struggle and the catastrophe of 1830. To appreciate, in a word, all the force of that demon-like power, it is sufficient to recall to recollection that th^- press succeeded in a few months in makin the weak and unfortunate Louis XVI. pass for , a blood-thirsty tyrant; and that latterly it. created that strong disaffection, which, in the crisis of their fate, Charles X. and his nobl» family experienced in the population of Pan and its environs; the very men who we; daily witnesses of their virtues, and literall . overwhelmed with their benefactions. "As to the law of elections, of Februar}', 1817, it was framed in the true spirit of democracy; the necessary result of which was, that it de- i livered the whole influence in the state into the • hands of the middling class, incapable of any practical instruction in public affairs, passion- ately devoted to change and disorder, from which . it hopes to obtain its elevation to the head of affairs, as if it eve- could maintain itself there. That law annulleu at once the influence both of the higher classes intrusted in the preservation : of order, and of the lower, ever ready, no doubt, ; to disturb the public peace, by the prospect of pillage, but who can never be led into long I disorders, by the dream of governing the state. ■ It follows, from these principles, that the law ■ of February 5, 1817, whose enactments regu- lated three-fifths of the electors, gave the ma- jority, and, by consequence, the control of the i state, precisely to the class the most dangerous to the public order, and ever disposed to support revolutions, from the belief that it will benefit by their progress." — St. Chamans, 21, 22. " The revolution, long previousl)^ prepared, broke out on occasion of the Ordinances, wliich were directed to the coercion of the press, and an alteration on the law of elections. The press could have been placed under no re- straints if the elections had returned a Cham- ber of Deputies, enemies alike to order an ' public repose. It was the law of the electioti . therefore, that alone rendered indispensable the employment of a violent remedy. The law . of the election of 5th February, 1817, with the ordinance of 5th September following on i'- and the creation of Peers Avhich was its n suit — these were the true causes of the Revoh tion of 1830, and these causes existed befo: the reign of Charles X. He therefore is ni to be blamed for it. If the throne has perisheii. it is not because the battle was engaged, but because it was lost. It was reduced to such a state, that nothing but a victory gained could i have saved it. "These were the causes which directly pri^- duced the catastrophe ; but it would neithi have been so complete nor so rapid, had it n^ been for the effects of that absurd centraliz. tion, of which the Constituent Assembly pre* pared the scourge, by dividing France into 8# i THE FRENCH REVOLUTIOX OF 1830. 361 many departments, nearl)-^ equal, and brcakinp; cown all the tics of the provinces, cemented fty time. That universal levelling paved the jway for tyranny, by concenlratina; the whole moral strength of the nation in Paris. The 'universal destruction of the provinces has .'deprived France of all internal strength ; the (whole remainder of the country has been re- Iduced to mimic the movements of Pari.s, and I ape its gestures, like a reflection in a glass. [Since that period, the provinces, or rather the 1 departments, have not had a thought or a wish, but what they received from Paris ; they have changed masters ten times, without knowing wh)', almost always against their will, begin- ning with the 10th August, 1792, and ending !with the 29th July, 1830. How, in fact, can an '■'y-si.rth part of France organize anj' resist- e to the central authority 1 The ncighbour- ling departments first receive the impulse, which lis instantly communicated like an electric [shock to the others. All France being con- centrated in Paris, there is neither force nor Dpiniou beyond that limited spot. The mo- aent that Paris falls, the whole kingdom in- ^'intlv falls under the yoke of the stranger; vast monarchy of France is reduced to the nit of a single city. It was not thus with • France. A king of England reigned six- 1 years in Paris, but the provinces resisted ' saved France. Guise and the League, and ■rly the Fronde, chased the king from Paris ; ■ the provinces did not abandon their sovc- jn, and not only preserved his throne, but "'l him back in triumph to Paris. ' " What a deplorable change is now exhi- n The great centralizaTion of Paris is epeated in detail in the little centralization of chief towns of the departments, which xraimunicale their movement to all the dis- ricts of which they arc the head. In each of hese, a few of the rabble, headed by half a lozen advocates, make a little revolution, ilways following the model of the great one. Phis is what has been seen in our days, but levcr before in so extraordinary and disgrace- ill a manner. Who would believe it] A few ousand workmen and students, who had ob- ned the mastery in Paris by means of a edition, changed the coloiirs of the nation, iQd hoisted the tri-coiour flag. The df-part- aents instantly covered themselves with white, ilae, and red. Throughout all France they ihanged their colours, without knowing whose hey were to mount; whether those of a rc- rabtic, a military despotism, or a democratic tOTCrnment. They knew nothing of all this ; "It. as mobs must have a rallying cry, they led out, llva la CViir/*-, when they were sup- 'ing a faction which had overturned it. If I asked them what they wanted, what they inplaincd of. whom thev srrvcd. what th-'V iT.poNPd to themselves ! Thr-y answfrnd.' We kill tell you when the next courier arrives m Paris.' They are in transports, and ready l.iy down their life— for whom 1 Why. for he rnirr whose name shall be proclaimed roni the first mail-coach. Unhappily this is 10 pl.-asantry; the tri-colour was n-rfived in «veral departments many days before they tncv what sort of government it was to bring them. Thirty or forty s lopkeepers in Paris had as many millions in our noble France at their disposal, as if it were a matter which they could mould according to their will. They made use of our illustrious country as a sta- tuary does of a block of marble, who asks himself, 'Shall I make a god, a devil, or a table V Be he whom he may, it is certain that he is the very man whom tlie provinces would most desire, and whom they would instantly love with transport the moment he is on the throne. Who can be surprised after that, if these revolutionary improvisatores arc not supported by the same profound aflections which ancient habits and old feelings have im- planted in the hearts. How disgraceful to the age to see our countrymen, and precisely those amongst them who are most vociferous in support of liberty, make themselves the mute slaves of Paris, and accept with their eyes shut whoever is crowned there, whether he be a Nero, a Caligula, or a Robespierre !" — Cho' mans, 24 — 27. These observations are worthy of the most serious attention. The utter and disgraceful state of thraldom in which France is kept by Paris — in other words, by twenty or thirty in- dividuals commanding the press there — has long been proved, and was con>;picuous through all the changes of tlic Revolution; and without doubt, the destruction of all the provincial courts, and the annihilation of the whole an- cient distinctions of the provinces, has gene far to break down and destroy the spirit of the remainder of France. But the evil lies deeper than in the mere centralization of all the in- fluences of France in Paris; its principal cause is to be found in the destruction of the higher ranks of the nobility, which took place during the first Revolution. In no part of France are there now to be found any great or influential proprietors, who can direct or strengthen public opinion in the provinces, or create any counterpoise to the overwhelming preponderance of the capital. Hero and there may be found an insulate,] proprietor who lives on his estates; but, ••• 'lat class is extinct in lli , far from being able to resist the inlluenre of I'aris, its peasant landholders are unable to withstand the ascendant of their prefect, or ihn chief town of their department. .Napob- er- fectly aware i,( this. He knew v in consequence of the destruction of the higher orders, regulated freedom was impossible in France, and he therefore .signali/ed his first ,i. , to the throne by the creation of .i ii. r of noblesse, who, he flal'ere.l him- self, would sunply the place of th.r been destroyed. Imperfectly as a i the most part destitute of property, can supply the place of one who centre in themselve-* the great mass of the national properiv. it vet con- tributed something to pre '^f society; and of this the '"•j regulated freedom of the 1' ''"d decisive evidence. But ' *'^ the purpose of the revo! «« few of iheiu to stiprei • ''^ journals were not y" ^"d therefore the" never ceased agiiatuig the putj 2G2 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. ic mind, and spreading the most false and malicious reports concerning all men in au- thority, till at length they succeeded in over- turning, not only the throne, but the hereditary peerage, and have thus destroyed the last bul- wark which stood between the Parisian mob and despotism, over the whole of France. Such is the unseen but resistless manner in which Providence counteracts the passions of individuals, and brings out of the furnace of democracy the strong government, which is ultimately destined to coerce it, and restore society to those principles which can alone insure the safety or happiness of its members. Let us now hear M. St. Chamans on the ef- fects of that great triumph of democracy. "Let us now attend to the deplorable effects of the Revolution of 1830. To riches has suc- ceeded misery; commerce, flourishing when the Glorious Days began, is now in the depth of suffering; industry, then so active, is lan- guishing; the bankers, so splendid before that catastrophe, now attract the public attention by nothing but the eclat of their bankruptcies. Before it, consumption was continually in- creasing; order and tranquillity reigned uni- versally in France ; the public revenue was abundant, and easily collected : since it, con- sumption has greatly decreased; disorder and disquietude trouble every man in the country; the public receipts are constantly diminish- ing, and becoming of more difficult collection. Contrast the moderate imposts which were suihcient when peace was certain, with the extraordinary expenses and total deficiency of the ordinary receipts which have taken place since the Revolution disturbed the peace of Europe, and the disastrous effects of this ca- lamitous event will distinctly appear. "Instead of the perfect order which under the Restoration prevailed in France, we now see universally violence going on against churches, priests, juries, electors, and inof- fensive citizens ; against the collectors of the public revenue, their registers and furniture ; against the organs of the press, and the press itself; royalty is obliged everywhere to efface the word 'Royal;' government addressing to the departments telegraphic despatches, which the prefects are in haste to affix on their walls, and which the public read with avidity; the great, the important news is, that on such a day, the 14th or 28th of July, Paris u-as tranquil. Pans was tranquil ! Why, tranquillity was so usual under the former reign, that no one thought of mentioning it, more than that the sun had risen in the morning. - Nor have the effects of the Three Glorious Days been less conspicuous in every other de- partment. We see regiments, ill-disciplined, acting according to their fancy; sometimes raging with severity against the insurrections; .'sometimes regarding, without attempting to suppress them; sometimes openly joinin'^ their violence ; the theatres alternately shocl?- ing religion, its ministers, manners, and public decency; the minister opposing nothing to that torrent of insanity, though he knows 'A-here to apply the scissors of the censorship when the license extends to his own actions." Ibid. 31, 32. " Thus the Revolution, without having given us one of the ameliorations so loudly demand ed by the Liberals, has exhibited no other re suit but anarchy and misery ; the one the ob ject of well-known terror to every friend to his country, the other universal suffering. It is needless to give any proofs of this state of de cay and suffering ; we have only to open oui eyes to see it ; all the world knows it, and not the least the authors of the Revolution of July ; not only those who have been its dupes, but those who have been enriched by it, (if indeed it has benefited any one,) make no attempt to conceal the state of anarchy and disquietude into which France is plunged ; on the contrary, they seek to turn it to their profit, by constantly exhibiting before the public eye a dismal per- spective of evils suspended over our heads- disorder, anarchy, a republic, pillage, popular massacres, in fine, the Reign of Terror. They do not pretend that their rule can give us pros- perity, but only that it stems the torrent of ad- versitj'. "These disastrous consequences are ma- turing throughout France with a frightful ra- pidity. The inhabitants of Paris, and possibly the government, are not aware of the extent to which the jirinciples of anarchy have spread in every part of France. They believe that the earth is undermined only where explosions have taken place, but they are in a mistake ; it is everywhere, and on all sides, a boukvcrsc merit is threatened. Certainly, if any thing is more deplorable than the present state of things, it is the future, which to all appearance is in store for us. " Discord and anarchy have penetrated everywhere; into most of the regiments of the army, into almost all the departments of France. In the army, it is well known that the non-commissioned officers have more au- thority than the officers ; in the villages, the electors of the magistrates and municipal councils, with the officers of the National Guard, have everywhere created two parties, and distracted every thing. The source of their discord is deeper than any political con- tests ; it is the old struggle of the poor against the rich ; it is the eflbrts of the democracy in waistcoats, trying to subvert the intolerable aristocracy of coats. " The disastrous effects of the Revolution of 1830 have not been confined to political sub- jects. To complete the picture of our interior condition, it is necessary to add that anarchy has spread not only into the state, but into re- ligion, literature, and the theatres, for it will invariably be found that disorder does not con- fine itself to one object; that the contagioi? spreads successively into every department of human thought. It was reserved for the lights of the 19th century to draw an absurd and in^ credible religion from the principle that 'la- bour is the source of riches.' The first conse- quence they deduce is, that there is no one use- ful in the world but he who labours ; those who do not are useless: The second, that all the good things of this M'orld should belong to those who are the most useful, that is the day- labourers. M. St. Simon thence concludes that a shoemaker is more useful to society than .hf. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 203 Duchess d'Angouleme. He never hesitated as to his divine mission, and gave himself out for the prophet of a new religion, the high priest of a new church. "In literature what a chaos of new and ex- travagant ideas — what a torrent of absurd re- volting madness has burst forth in a short pe- riod ! It is especially during the last eighteen months, that all men of reflection have become sensible of the reality of our state of perfection ; they have seen that the inefficiency of our lite- rary and political character is at least equal to their prtie, and nothing more can be said of them. . "One Avould imagine, iu truth, that Provi- dence had intentionally rendered the triumph of the Revolutionists so sudden and complete, expressly in order to open the eyes of those by a new example, to whom the first would not suffice. Nothing has con- tended against them but the consequence of their own principles, and yet where are they] They have declaimed for fifteen years against the undue preponderance of the roj'al authori- ty, and the want of freedom ; and yet they have proved by their actions that they could take nothing from that authority, and add nothing to that freedom, without plunging us into anar- ch}''. Follow attentively their reign — their own principles have been sufficient to destroy them, without the intervention of a human being. The first ministry, M. Guizot and the Duke de Broglio, had the favour of the king, and of the majority in both chambers. Under the Resto- ration, a ministry could never have been over- turned which stood in such a situation ; but nevertheless it did not exist three months ; without being attacked it perished ; disap- peared in the midst of a tumult. The repres- sion of that disorder was the nominal, the prin- ciples of the government itself the real cause. The same causes overthrew in a few months more the succeeding ministry. The adminis- tration of Casimir Perier had also the support of the king and of the chambers, and no one attacked it; but nevertheless it was compelled fo purchase a disgraceful and ephemeral exist- •mce, by the suppression of the hereditary peerage. Such is the state of this government ; with all the elements of force it is incapable of governing; with .500,000 men, and an annual budget of 1500,000,000, (64,000,000/.,) whicii it has at its disposal, it is not obeyed. At Paris, nothing has occurred but revolt upon revolt, which could be suppressed only by abandoning to their fury the Cross, the emblem of Chris- tianity, the palace of the Archbishop, and the arms of the throne; while in the provinces in- surrections have broken out on all sides, some- times against the authority of the magistrates, L-iimetimes with their concurrence, which have led. to such a stoppage of the revenue, as has led to the contraction of debt to the amount of 20,000,000/. a year. " Whence is it, that with the same elements from whence Charles X. extracted so much prosperity, and maintained such perfect peace, nothing can be produced under Louis Philippe but misery and disorder? It is impossible to blink the question; it is with the same capital that industryand commerce are perishing; with Uie same manufactures that you cannot find employment for your workmen; with the same ships that your merchants arc starving; with the same revenues that you are compelled to sell the royal forests, contract enormous loans; pillage the fund laid aside for the indemnity of individuals, and incessantly increase the floating debt; that it is with peace both with- in and without that you are obliged to aug- ment the army, and restore all the severity of the conscription. How is it that the ancient dynasty preserved us from so many misfor- tunes, and the new one has brought us such terrible scourges 1 I will explain the cause. " Confidence creates this prosperity of na- tions. Disquietude and apprehension cause it to disappear. Security, for the future, given or taken away, produces activity or languor, riches or misery, tranquillity or trouble. You have made your election for the wrong side of that alternative, when instead of Right you substitute Might: because Right, which never changes, bears in itself all the elements of stability, while PoM^er, which changes every day, brings home to every breast the feeling of instability. I know well, that to the present triumph of power its leaders strive to annex an idea of right ; but it will be just as easy, when the next heave of the revolutionary earthquake displaces the present authority, to clothe that which succeeds it with a similar title to permanent obedience. Every succes- sive party in its turn can rest its pretensions to sovereignty on the authority of the People. On the other hand, our right of succession depends on an immovable basis. If Charles X. or Henry V. is on the throne, every one knows that no person can claim the crown on the same title as that by which they held it: but under the present government, how is it possible to avoid the conviction, that if it pleases 300 persons at Metz or Grenoble to proclaim a republic, or 300 others at Toulouse or Bordeaux, Henry V., and if a general stupor, arising from the weakness of each of the d-e- partments taken singly, prevents any effectual resistance, the new government will immedi- ately acquire the same title to obedience as that which now fills the throne 1" — St. C/w- mans, 57, 58. " It is therefore in the principle on which the government is founded, that we must look for the causeofoursulllTing and our ruin. Iflo this cause we add the consequences, nut less power- ful, of a democratic constitution, that is, to an orcranized anarchy, we may despair of the safety of our country, if it is not destroyed by the seeds of destruction which such a govern- ment carries in its bosom. In no country, and in no age, has democracy made a great state prosper, or established it in a stable manner; and even though it should become inured to the climate elsewhere, it would always prove fatal in France. The foundation of the French character is vanity; and that feeling which, under proper direction, becomes a noble desire for illustrators, which has been the source of our military gku-y, and of our success in so many different departments, is an invincible bar to our essays ■'n democracy, because every one is envious of the superiority of his neigh^ hour, conceives himself qualified for every XG4 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS, .'hing, aiul pretends to every situation."— IbicL 60. "The Revolution of 1830 has lighted anew the torch of experience on many controverted points, and I appeal with confidence upon them to the many men of good faith who exist among our adversaries. They seek like us the good of our common country, and the welfare of humanity; they hold that in the Charter there was too little political power conferred upon the people. Let them judge now, for the proof has been decisive. They will find that on every occasion, without one exception, in which political power, unrestrained by strict limits, has been conferred upon the people, personal Itbciiyhad been destroyed; that the latter has lost as much as the former has gained. Such an extension of political power is no- thing but democracy or supreme authority lodged in the hands of the people. Reflect upon the fate of personal freedom under the democratic constitutions which promised us the greatest possible extension of individual liberty. Was there liberty under the Consti- tuent Assembly, for those who were massacred in the streets, and whose heads they carried on the ends of pikes "? Was there liberty for the seigniors whose chateaux they burnt, and who saved their lives only by flight 1 Was there liberty for those who were massacred at Avignon, or whom the committee of Jacobins tore from the bosoms of their families to con- duct to the guillotine 1 Was there liberty for the King, who was not permitted to move be- yond the barriers of Paris, nor venture to breathe the fresh air at the distance of a league from the city 1 No, there was liberty only for their oppressors : the only freedom was that which the incendiaries, jailers, and assassins enjoyed. "Since the Revolution of Jul)', has there been any freedom for the clergy, who do not venture to show themselves in the streets of Paris, even in that dress which is revered by savage tribes ; for the Catholics, who can no longer attend mass but at midnight; for the Judges, who are threatened in the discharge of their duties by the aspirants for their places ; for the Electors, whose votes are overturned with the urns which contain them, and who return lacerated and bleeding from the place of election; for the Citizens arbitrarily thrust out of the National Guard; for the Archbishop of Paris, whose house was robbed and plun- dered with impunity, at the very moment when the ministers confessed in the chambers they could allege nothing against him; for the officers of all grades, even the generals ex- pelled from their situations at the caprice of their inferiors ; for the curates of churches, when the governm?nt,' trembling before the sovereign multitude, close the churches to save them from the profanation and sacking of the mob; for the King himself, condemned by their despotism, to lay aside the arms of his racel" " These evils have arisen from confounding personal with political liberty; a distiction which lies at the foundation of these matters. "I cM personal freedom the right to dispose, without molestation, of one's person and es tate, and be secure that neither the one no5 the other will be disquieted without your con sent. That liberty is an object of universal in- terest ; its preservation the source of universal solicitude. I support the extension of that species of liberty to the utmost extent that society can admit ; and I would carry it to a much greater length than ever has heen im- agined by our democrats. I would have every one's property held sacred; his person and estate inviolable, without the consent of his representatives, or the authority of the law; absolute seciirity against forced service of any kind, or against either arrest or punishment, but under the strongest safeguard, for the protection of innocence. " The other species of liberty, called Politi- cal Liberty, is an object of interest to the great body of the citizens ; it consists in the right of taking a part in the government of the state. It cannot afiect the great body, because in every country the immense majority can influence government neither b}^ their votes nor their writings. This latter kind of liberty should be restrained within narrow limits, for experi- ence proves it cannot be widely extended vrith- out destroying the other." These observations appear to be as novel as they are important. They are not, strictly speaking, new ; for in this Magazine for Feb- ruary, 1830,* the same principles are laid down and illustrated; and this furnishes another proof, among the many which might be col- lected, of the simultaneous extrication of the same original thought, in diflerent countries at the same time, from the course of political events. But to any one who calmly and dis- passionately considers the subject, it must be manifest that they contain the true principle on the subject. The diSerence, as St. Cha- mans says, between personal and polilicai lib- erty, or, as we should say in this countr}-, be- tween Freedom and Democracy, is the most important distinction which ever was stated ; and it is from confounding these two different objects of popular ambition, that all the misery has arisen, which has so often attended thfe struggle for popular independence, and tha\ liberty has so often been strangled by its own votaries. To pi'oduce the greatest amount of personal freedom and security with the smallest degree of political power in the lower classes ; to combine the maximum of liberty with the mi- nimum of democracy, is the great end of good government, and should be the great object of the true patriot in every age and country. There is no such fatal enemy to Freedom as Democracy; it never fails to devour its off- spring in a few years. True liberty, or the complete security of persons, thoughts, pro- perty, and actions, in all classes, from injury or oppression, never existed three months imder an unrestrained Democracy ; because the worst of tyrannies is a multitude of tyrants. The coercion of each class of society by the others ; * French Revolution, No. 2. February, 1830, wiitten by the author. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OP 1830. 265 of tlie impetuosity and vehemence of the po- pulace and their demagogues by the steadiness and weight of the aristocracy ; of the ambi- tion and oppression of the aristocracy by the vigour and independence of the commons, is indispensable to the equilibrium of govern- ment and the preservation of freedom; but it is precisely the state of things which the re- volutionists will ever assail with most vehe- mence, because it afibrds the most effectual coercion to their passions and despotic ambi- tion. The spirit of democracy, that keen and devouring element which has produced, and is producing, such ravages in the world, is to the political what fire is to domestic life. Politi- cal freedom cannot exist without it, and when properly regulated, it vivifies and improves every department of society; but if once al- lowed to get ahead, if not confined within iron bars, it will instantly consume the fabric in ■which it is placed. Napoleon has left the following picture of the manner in which freedom was devoured by democracy, during the first French Revolu- tion : — " Liberty," said he, " was doubtless the first cry of the people when the Revolution arose ; but that was not what they really de- sired. The first lightning of the Revolution showed what talents then existed, which the levelling prmciple would restore to society for the advantage and glory of the state. Thus it was equality which the French people always desired; and to tell the truth, liberty hath never existed since it was proclaimed. For the proper definition of liberty is the power of freely ex- ercising all our faculties ; and with the excep- tion of some speeches which the orators of the sections were allowed to make in 1795, show me a period when the people were at liberty to say or do what they wished since 1789 1 Was it when the crowds of women and malecon- tents besieged the Convention 1 Begone ; think of your business, said they ; and yet these poor people only asked for bread. Will any one pretend that the years 1793 or 1794 were the eras of freedom 1 Under the Directory, no one dared to open their mcuth; and after the 18th Fructidor in 1797, a second Reign of Terror arose. Never have the people, even under Louis XI. or Cardinal Richelieu, or in the most despotic states, had less liberty than duriiii^ the whole period ivhich has elapsed since the first Jlcvn- lution broke out. What France always wished, what shs still wishes, is equality; in other words, the equal partition of the means of ris- ing to glory and distinction in the state."* This lesson would not suffice. The revolu- tionists saw their despotic rule melting away under the just and equal sway of the Bourbon.?, and therefore they inflamed the public mind till they got their government overthrown. Despotism of one kind or another instantly re- turned : that of the National Guard, the Pari- sian Emeutes, or Marshal Soult's cannoniers, and liberty has been destroyed by the dema- gogues who roused the people in its name. Thus it ever has been ; thus it ever will be to the end of time. Individuals may be instructed by history or enlightened by reflection; the great masses of mankind will never learn wis- dom but from their own suffering. This distinction between individual freedom and political power, between liberty and demo- cracy, is the great point of separation between the Whigs and Tories. The Conservatives strive to increase personal frcedoin to the ut- most degree, and to effect that they find it in- dispensable to restrain the efforts of its worst enemies, the democrac}^ The Whigs attend only to the augmentation of popular power, and in so doing they instantly trench on civil liberty. When were persons, property, life, and thoughts, more free, better protected or secured, than in Great Britain from 1815 to 1830, the days when the Democracy was re- strained 1 When have they been so ill secured since the tinie of Cromwell, as during the last two years, illuminated as they have been by the flames of Bristol, and the conflagration of Jamaica, the days of democratic ascendency 1 Ireland, at present under the distracting rule of O'Connell, the demagogue, is the prototype of the slavery to which we are fast driving, under the guidance of the Whigs : England, from 1815 to 1830, the last example of the freedom from which we are receding, estab- lished by the Tories. What farther evils the farther indulgence of this devouring principle AS to produce, we know not, though experience gives us little hopes of amendment till we have gone through additional suffering; but of this we are well assured, that the time will come when these truths shall have passed into axioms, and experience taught every man of intelligence, that the assassins of freedom are the supporters of democratic power. ♦ Napoleon, en Ductiesise Abrantes, vii. 1,69, 170. 206 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. THE FALL OF TURKEY.* TnE hng duration and sudden fall of the Turkish Empire is one of the most extraordi- nary and apparently inexplicable phenomena in European histor}% The decay of the Otto- man power had been constantly the theme of historians; their approaching downfall, the unceasing subject of prophecy for a century; but yet the ancient fabric still held out, and evinced on occasions a dsgree of vigour which confounded all the machinations of its enemies. For eighty years, the subversion of the empire of Constantinople had been the unceasing object of Moscovite ambition : the genius of Catherine had been incessantly directed to that great object; a Russian prince was christ- ened after the last of the Palceologi expressly to receive his throne, but yet the black eagle made little progress towards the Danube; the Mussulman forces arrayed on its banks were still most formidable, and a host arrayed under the banners of the Osmanleys, seemingly ca- pable of making head against the world. For four years, from 1808 to 1812, the Russians waged a desperate war Avith the Turks ; they brought frequently an hundred and fifty, some- times two hundred thousand men into the field; but at its close they had made no sensi- ble progress in the reduction of the bulwarks of Islamisra : two hundred thousand Mussul- mans had frequently assembled round the ban- ners of the Prophet; the Danube had been stained with blood, but the hostile armies still contended in doubtful and desperate strife on its shores; and on the glacis of Roudschouk, the Moscovites had sustained a bloodier defeat than they ever received from the genius of Napoleon. In the triumph of the Turks at that prodigious victory, the Vizier wrote exult- ingly to the Grand Seignior, that such was the multitude of the Infidel heads which he had taken, that they would make a bridge for the souls of the Faithful from earth to heaven. But though then so formidable, the Ottoman power has within these twenty years rapidly and irrecoverably declined. The great barrier cf Turkey was reached in the first campaign cf the next war, the Balkan yielded to Russian genius in the second, and Adrianople, the an- cient capital of the Osmanleys, became cele- brated for the treaty which sealed for ever the degradation of their race. On all sides the provinces of the empire have revolted: Greece, through a long and bloody contest, has at length worked out its deliverance from all butits own passions; the ancient war-cry of Byzantium, Victory to the Cross, has been again" heard on the .(Egean Sca;f and the Pasha of Egypt, tak- • Travels in Turkey, by F Slade, Esq. London, 1832 Blackwood's Matfazine, .lime, 1833. tWhcii the liravo Canaria passed under the bows of me Turkish admiral's sliip, to wliich he had prappled the fatal firesliip, at .Scio, the crow in his lioat exclaimed ' \iriory to the (.'ross!" the old war-cry of Byzantium! —OoHun's Greek Revolution, i. VA. ing advantage of the weakness consequent ft so many reverses, has boldly thrown off tn« yoke, and, advancing from Acre in the path of Napoleon, shown to the astonished world the justice of that great man's remark, that his defeat by Sir Sidney Smith under its walls made him miss his destiny. The victory of Koniah prostrated the Asiatic power of Turkey; the standards of Mehemet Ali rapidly ap- proached the Sei'aglio; and the disc&mfited Sultan has been driven to take refuge under the suspicious shelter of the Russian legions. Already the advanced guard of Nicholas has passed the Bosphorus ; the Moscovite standards are floating at Scutari ; and, to the astonish- ment alike of Europe and Asia, the keys of the Dardanelles, the throne of Constantine, are laid at the feet of the Czar. The unlooked for rapidity of these events, is not more astonishing than the weakness which the Mussulman s have evinced in their last strug- gle. The Russians, in the late campaign, nevel assembled forty thousand men in the field. In the battle of the 11th June, 1828, which de- cided the fate of the war, Diebitsch had only thirty-six thousand soldiers under arms ; yet this small force routed the Turkish army, and laid open the far-famed passes of the Balkan to the daring genius of its leadei*. Christendom looked in vain for the mighty host which, at the sight of the holy banner, was wont to as- semble round the standard of the Prophet. The ancient courage of the Osmanleys seemed to have perished with their waning fortunes; hardly could the Russian outposts keep pace with them in the rapidity of their flight; and a force, reduced by sickness to tAventy thousand men, dictated peace to the Ottomans within twenty hours' march of Constantinople. More lately, the once dreaded throne of Turkey has become a jest to its remote provinces; the Pasha of Egypt, once the most inconsiderable of its vassals, has compelled the Sublime Porte, the ancient terror of Christendom, to seek for safety in the protection of Infidel battalions; and the throne of Constantine, in- capable of self-defence, is perhaps ultimately destined to become the prize for which Mos- covite ambition and Arabian audacity are to contend on the glittering shores of Scutari. But if the weakness of the Ottomans is sur- prising, the supineness of the European pow- ers is not less amazing at this interesting crisis. The power of Russia has long been a subject of alarm to France, and having twice seen the Cossacks at the Tuileries, it is not surprising that they should feel somcAvhat nervous ai eveiy addition to its strength. England, jea- lous of its maritime superiority, and appre- hensive — whether reasonably or not is imma- terial — of danger to her Indian possessions, from the growth of Russian power in Asia, has long made it a f xed principle of her policy xo THE FALL OF TURKEY. 2G7 coerce the ambitious designs of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, and twice she has saved Turkey from their grasp. When the Russians and Austrians, in the last century, projected an alliance for its partition, and Catherine and Joseph had actually met on the Wolga to arrange its details, Mr. Pitt interposed, and by the influence of England prevented the design : and when Diebitsch was in full march for Constantinople, and the insurrection of the Janissaries only waited for the sight of the Cossacks to break out, and overturn the throne of Mahmoud, the strong arm of Wellington in- terfered, put a curb in the mouth of Russia, and postponed for a season the fall of the Turkish power. Now, however, every thing is changed ; — France and England, occupied with domestic dissensions, are utterly paralysed ; they can no longer make a show of resistance to Moscovite ambition ; exclusively occupied in preparing the downfall of her ancient allies, the Dutch and the Portuguese, England has not a thought to bestow on the occupation of the Dardanelles, and the keys of the Levant are, without either observation or regret, passing to the hands of Russia. These events are so extraordinary, that they almost make the boldest speculator hold his breath. Great as is the change in external events which we daily witness, the alteration in internal feeling is still greater. Changes which would have convulsed England from end to end, dangers which would have thrown European diplomacy irf^ agonies a few years ago, are now regarded with indifference. The progress of Russia through Asia, the capture of Erivan and Erzeroum, the occupation of the Dardanelles, are now as little regarded as if we had no interest in such changes; as if we had no empire in the East threatened by so ambitious a neighbour; no independence at stake in the growth of the Colossus of northern Europe. The reason is apparent, and it affords the first great and practical proof which Enijland has yet received of the fatal blow, which the recent changes have struck, not only at her internal prosperity, but her external independ- ence. England is now powerless; and, what is Avorse, the European powers Icnow it. Her government is so incessantly and exclnsivoly occupied in maintaining its ground against tlie internal enemies whom the Reform Bill lias raised up into appalling strength; the neces- sity of sacrificing something to the insatiable passions of the revolutionists is so apparent, that every other object is disregarded. The allies by whose aid they overthrew the con- stitution, have turned so nercely upon them, that they are forced to strain every nerve to resist these domestic enemies. Who can think of the occupation of Scutari, when the malt lax is threatened with repeal! Who care fur the thunders of Nicholas, when the threats of O'Connell are ringing in their ears? The English government, once so stable and stead- fast in its resolutions, when rested on the firm rock of the Aristocracy, has become unstable as water since it was thrown for its support upon the Democracy. Its designs are as changeable, its policy as fluctuating, as the volatile and inconsiderate mass from which it sprung; and heace its menaces are disre- garded, its ancient relations broken, its old allies disgusted, and the weight of its influence being no longer felt, projects the most threat- ening to its independence are without hesita- tion undertaken by other states. Nor is the supineness and apathy of the nation less important or alarming. It exists to such an extent as clearly to demonstrate, that not only are the days of its gloiy num- bered, but the termination even of its inde- pendence may be foreseen at no distant period. Enterprises the most hostile to its interestSj conquests the most fatal to its glory, are ur dertaken by its rivals not only without the disapprobation, but with the cordial suppon, of the majority of the nation. Portugal, for a century the ally of England, for whose defence hundreds of thousands of Englishmen had died in our own times, has been abandoned without a murmur to the revolutionary' spoliation and propagandist arts of France. Holland, the bulwark of England, for whose protection the great war with France was undertaken, has been assailed by British fleets, and threatened by British power ; and the shores of the Scheldt, which beheld the victorious legions of Wellington land to curb the power of Napo- leon, have witnessed the union of the tricolour and British flags, to beat down the indepen dence of the Dutch provinces. Constantino pie, long regarded as the outpost of India against the Russians, is abandoned without regret ; and, amidst the strife of internal fac- tion, the fixing of the Moscovite standards on the shores of the Bosphorus, the transference of the finest harbour in the world to a growing maritime power, and of the entrepot of Europe and Asia to an already formidable commercial state, is hardly the subject of obseiwation. The reason cannot be concealed, and is loo clearly illustrative of the desperate tendency of the recent changes upon all the classes of the empire. With the revolutionists the pas- sion for change has supplanted every other feeling, and the spirit of innovation has extin- guished that of patriotism. They no longer Idague in thought, or word, or wish, exclusive- ly with their own countrymen ; they no longer regard the interests and glory of England, as the chief objects of their solicitude ; what they look to is the revolutionary party in other states ; what they sympathize with, the pro- gress of the tricolour in overturning other dy- nasties. The loss of British dumininn, the loss of British colonics, the downfall of British power, the decay of British gloiy, the loss of British independence, is to them a matter of no regret, provided the tricolour is triumphant, and tlic cause of revolution is making progresj in the world. Well and truly did Mr. Burke say, that the spirit of patriotism and Jacobin ism could not coexist in the same state; and that the greatest national disasters are lightly passed over, provided they bring with them the advance of domestic ambition. The Conservatives, on the other hand, are so utterly desperate in regard to the future prospects of the empire, from the vacillation and violence of the Democratic party who avfl 268 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. iDstalled in sovercignt)^ that external events, even of the most threatening character, are rcarded by tliem but as dust in the balance, when compared with the domestic calamities which are staring us in the face. What al- though the ingratitude and tergiversation of England to Holland have deprived us of all respect among foreign states 1 That evil, great as it is, is nothing to the domestic em- barrassments which overwhelm the country from the unruly spirit which the Whigs fos- tered with such sedulous care during the Re- form contest. What although the empire of the Mediterranean, and ultimately our Indian possessions, are menaced by the ceaseless groM'th of Russia; the measures which go- vernment have in contemplation for the ma- nagement of that vast dominion, will sever it from the British empire before any danger is frit from external foes ; and long ere the Mos- covite eagles are seen on the banks of the In- dus, the insane measures of the Ten Pounders will in all probability have banished the Bri- nsh standards from the plains of Hindostan. Every thing, in short, announces that the external Vv-eight and foreign importance of Great Britain are irrecoverably lost; and that the passing of the Reform Bill will ultimately prove to have been the death-warrant of the British empire. The Russians are at Con- stantinople ! the menaces, the entreaties of England, are alike disregarded; and the ruler of the seas has submitted in two years to de- scend to the rank of a second-rate power. That which a hundred defeats could have «iardly effected to old England, is the very iirst result of the innovating system upon which new England has entered. The Russians are at Constantinople! How would the shade of Chatham, or Pitt, or Fox thrill at the an- nouncement ! But it makes no sort of im- pression on the English people: as little as the robbery of the Portuguese fleet by the French, or the surrender of the citadel of Ant- werp to the son-in-law of Louis Philippe. In this country we have arrived, in an incon- ceivably short space of time, at that weakness, disunion, and indifference to all but revolu- tionary objects, which is at once the forerun- ner and the cause of national ruin. But leaving these mournful topics, it is more instructive to turn to the causes which have precipitated, in so short a space of time, the fall of the Turkish empire. Few more curious or extraordinary phenomena are to be met with in the page of history. It will be found that the Ottomans have fallen a victim to the same passion for innovation and reform which have proved so ruinous both in this and a neighbouring country; and that, while the bulwarks of Turkey were thrown down by the rude hand of Mahmoud, the States of West- ern Europe were disabled, by the same frantic course, froni rendering him any effectual aid. How Tvell in every age has the spirit of Jaco- binism and revolutionary passion aided the march, and hastened the growth of Russia! The fact of the long duration of Turkey, in the midst of the monarchies of Europe, and Vhe stubborn resistance which she opposed for a series c f ages tq the attacks of the two great- est of its military powers, is of itself suficienl to demonstrate that the accounts on which we had been accustomed to rely of the conditioa of the Ottoman empire were partial or exag- gerated. No fact is so universally demonstrated by history as the rapid and irrecoverable de- cline of barbarous powers, Avhen the career of conquest is once terminated. Where is now the empire of the Caliphs or the Moors'] What has survived of the conquests, one hun- dred years ago, of Nadir Shahl How long did the empire of Aurengzebe, the throne of the Great Mogul, resist the attacks of England, even at the distance of ten thousand miles from the parent state ? Hoav then did it hap- pen that Turkey so long resisted the spoiler 1 What conservative principle has enabled the Osmanleys so long to avoid the degradation which so rapidly overtakes all barbarous and despotic empires; and what has communi- cated to their vast empire a portion of the undecaying vigour which has hitherto been considered as the grand characteristic of Eu- ropean civilization 1 The answer to these questions will both unfold the real causes of the long endurance, and at length the sudden fall, of the Turkish empire. Though the Osmanleys were an Asiatic power, and ruled entirely on the principles of Asiatic despotism, yet their conquests were effected in Europe, or in those parts of Asia in which, from the influence of the Crusades, or of the Roman institutions which survived their invasion, a certain degree of European civilization remained. It is difficult utterly to exterminate the institutions of a counliy Avhere they have been long established; those of the Christian provinces of the Roman empire have in part survived all the dreadful tempests which for the last six centuries have passed over their surface. It is these remnants of civilization, it is the institutions which stili linger among the vanquished people, which have so long preserved the Turkish provinoes from decay ; and it is these ancient bulwark^;, which the innovating passions of Mahmoud have now destroyed. 1. The first circumstance which upheld, amidst its numerous defects, the Ottoman em- pire, was the rights conceded on the first con- quest of the country by Mahomet to the dcre beys or ancient nobles of Asia Minor, and" which the succeeding sultans have been care ful to maintain inviolate. These dere beys all capitulated with the conqueror, and obtained the important privileges of retaining their lands in perpetuity for their descendants, and c»f paying a. fixed tribute in money and men to the sultan. In other words, they were a here- ditary noblesse; and as they constituted the great strength of the empire in its Asiatic pro- vinces, they have preserved their privilege through all succeeding reigns. The following is the description given of them by the intelli- gent traveller whose work is prefixed to this article: — " The dere beys," says Mr. Slade, " literally lords of the valleys, an expression peculiarly adapted to the country, which presents a series of oval valleys, surrounded by ramparts of hills, were the cr.'iginalpossessoi-s of those parts THE FALL OF TURKEY. 263 ol A'iia Minor, which submitted, inider feudal conditions, to the Ottomans. Between the conquest of Brussa and the conquest of Con- stantinople, a lapse of more tlian a century, chequered by the episode of Tamerlane, their faith was precarious ; but after the latter event, Mahomet IL bound their submission, and finally settled the terms of their existence. He confirmed them in their lands, subject, how- ever, to tribute, and to quotas of troops in v,-ar; and he absolved the head of each family for ever from personal service. The last clause was the most important, as thereby the sultan had no power over their lives, nor consequent- ly, could be their heirs, that despotic power being lav.-ful over those only in the actual ser- vice of the Porte. The families of the dere beys, therefore, became neither impoverished nor extinct. It would be dealing in truisms to enumerate the advantages enjoyed by the dis- tricts of these noblemen over the rest of the empire; they were oases in the desert: their owners had more than a life-interest in the soil, they were born and lived among the peo- ple, and, being hereditarily rich, had no occa- sion to create a private fortune, each year, after the tribute due was levied. Whereas, in a pashalic the people are strained every 5^ear to double or treble the amount of the impost, since the pasha, who pays for his situation, must also be enriched. The devotion of the dependents of the dere beys was great: at a whistle, the Car'osman-Oglous, the Tchapan- Oglous, the Ellezar-Oglous, (the principal Asiatic families that survive,) could raise, each, from ten thousand to twenty thousand horsemen, and equip them. Hence the facility with which the sultans, up to the present cen- tnry, drew such large bodies of cavalry into the field. The dere beys have always fur- nished, and maintained, the greatest part; and there is not one instance, since the conquest of Constantinople, of one of these great fami- lies raising the standard of revolt. The pashas invariably have. The reasons, respectively, are obvious. The dere bey waj sure of keep- ing his possessions by right : the pasha of losing his by custom, unless he had money to bribe the Porte, or force to intimidate it. "These provincial nobles, whoso rights had been respected during four centuries, by a series of twenty-four sovereigns, had two crimes in the eyes of Mahraoud H. ; they held their properly from their ancestors, and they liad riches. To alter the tenure of the former, the destination of the latter, was his object. The dere beys — unlike the seraglio dependents, brought up to distrust their own shadows — had no causes for suspicion, and therefore became easy dupes of the grossest treachery. The unbending spirits were removed to another world, the flexible were despoiled of their wealth. Some few await their turn, or, their eyes opened, prepare to resist oppression. Car'osman Oglou, for example, was summon- ed to Constantinople, where expensive em- ployments, forced on him during several years, reduced his ready cash ; while a follower of the seraglio resided at his city of Magnesia, to collect his revenues. His peasants, in conse- q^uence, ceased to cultivate their lands, from whence they no longer hoped to reap profit j and his once flourishing possessions soon be came as desolate as any which had always been under the gripe of pashas." This passage throws the strongest light on the former condition of the Turkish empire They possessed an hereditary noblesse in their Asiatic provinces ; a body of men whose iii- terests were permanent; who enjoyed their rights by succession, and, therefore, were per- manently interested in preserving their pos- sessions from spoliation. It was their feudal tenantry who flocked in such multitudes to the standard of Mohammed when any great crisis occurred, and formed those vast armies who so often astonished the European powers, and struck terror into the boldest hearts in Christ- endom. These hereditary nobles, however, the bones of the empire, whose estates were exempt from the tyranny of the pashas, have been destroyed by Mahmoud. Hence the dis- affection of the Asiatic provinces, and the rea- diness with which they opened their arms to the liberating standards of Mehemet Ali. It is the nature of innovation, whether enforced by the despotism of a sultan or a democracy, to destroy in its fervour the institutions on which public freedom is fcunded. 2. The next circumstance Avhich contributed to mitigate the severity of Ottoman oppression was the privileges of the provincial cities, chiefly in Europe, which consisted in being governed by magistrates elected by the people themselves from among their chief citizens. This" privilege, a relic of the rights of the Munlcipea over the whole Roman empire, was established in all the great towns ; and its im- portance in moderating the otherwise intoler- able weight of Ottoman oppression was incal- culable The pashas, or temporary rulers appointed by the sultan, had no authority, or only a partial one in these free cities, and hence they formed nearly as complete an as3'lum for industry in Europe as the estates of the dere beys di I in Asia. This important right, however, could not escape the reforming passion of Mahmoud ; and it was accordingly overturned. "In conjunction with subverting the dere beys, Mahmoud attacked the privileges of the great provincial cities, (principally in Europe,) which consisted in the election of ayans (ma- gistrates) by the people, from among the n6ta- bles. Some cities were solely governed by them, and in those ruled by pashas, they had, in most cases, sufficient influence to restrain somewhat the full career of despotism. They were the protectors of rayas, as well as of Mussulmans, and, for their own sakes, resist- ed exorbitant imposts. The change in the cities where their authority has becu abolished (Adrianople, c. c;.) is deplorable; trade has since languished, and population lias diminish- ed. They were instituted by Solyman, (the lawgiver,) and the protection which they have invariably allurded the Christian subjects of the Porte, entitles them to a Christian's good word. Their crime, that of the dere beys, vras being possessed of authority not emanating from the sultan. "Had Mahmoud IL intrusted the gcvcrn 270 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. mem of the provinces to the dere beys, and strengthened the authority of the ayans, he would have truly reformed his empire, by restoring it to its brightest state, have gained the love of his subjects, and the applauses of humanity. By the contrary proceeding, sub- verting two bulwarks (though dilapidated) of national prosperity — a provincial nobility and magistracy — he has shown himself a selfish tyrant." 3 In addition to an hereditary nobility in the dere beys, and the privileges of corpora- tions in the right of electing their ayans, the Mussulmans possessed a powerful hierarchy in the' itkma; a most important body in the Ottoman dominions, and whose privileges have gone far to limit the extent of its des- potic government. This important institution has been little understood hitherto in Europe ; but they have contributed in a most important manner to mitigate the severity of the sultan in those classes who enjoyed no special pro- tection. " In each of the Turkish cities," says Mr. Slade, " reside a muphti and a rnollah. A knowledge of Arabic, so as to be able to read the Koran in the original, is considered suffi- cient for the former, but the latter must have run a legal career in one of the medressehs, (universities of Constantinople.) After thirty years' probation in a medresseh, the student becomes of the class of muderis, (doctors at law,) from which are chosen the mollahs, comprehended under the name of ulema. Students who accept the inferior judicial ap- pointments can never become of the ulema. "The ulema is divided into three classes, according to a scale of the cities of the empire. The first class consists of the cazi-askers, (chief judges of Europe and Asia;) the Stam- boul effendisi, (mayor of Constantinople ;) the mollahs qualified to act at Mecca, at Medina, at Jerusalem, at Bagdat, at Salonica, at Alep- po, at Damascus, at Brussa, at Cairo, at Smyr- na, at Cogni, at Galata, at Scutari. The se- cond class consists of the mollahs qualified to act at the twelve cities of next importance. The third class at ten inferior cities. The administration of minor towns is intrusted to cadis, who are nominated by the cazi-askers in their respective jurisdictions, a patronage which produces great wealth to these two officers. " In consequence of these powers the mollah of a city may prove as great a pest as a needy pasha; but as the mollahs are hereditarily wealthy, they are generally moderate in their perquisitions, and often protect the people against the extortions of the pasha. The cadis, however, of the minor towns, who have not the advantage of being privately rich, sel- dom fail to join with the aga to skin the 'ser- pent that crawls in the dust.' "The mollahs, dating from the reign of So- lyman — zenith of Ottoman prosperity — were not slow in discovering the value of their situations, or in taking advantage of them ; |iid as their sanctity protected them from spo- -iation, they were enabled to leave their riches to their children, who were brought up to the Barae career, and were, by privilege, allowed to finish their studies at the medresseh in eigh- years less time than the prescribed number of )'ears, the private tuition which they were sup- posed to receive from their fathers making up for the deficiency. Thus, besides the influence of birth and wealth, they had a direct facility in attaining the degree of muderi, which their fellow-citizens and rivals had not, and who were obliged in consequence to accept inferior judicial appointments. In process of time the whole monopoly of the ulema centred in a certain number of families, and their constant residence at the capital, to which they return at the expiration of their term of office, has maintained their power to the present day. Nevertheless, it is true that if a student of a medresseh, not of the privileged order, pos- sess extraordinary merit, the ulema has gene- rally the tact to admit him of the body : wo to the cities to which he goes as mollah, since he has to create a pi-ivate fortune for his family. Thus arose that body — the peerage of Turkey — known by the name of ulema, a body uniting the high attributes of law and religion; dis- tinct from the clergy, yet enjoying all the ad- vantages connected with a church paramount; free from its shackles, yet retaining the perfect odour of sanctity. Its combination has given it a greater hold in the state than the dere beys, though possessed individually of more power, founded too on original charters, sunk from' a want of union." The great effect of the ulema has arisen from this, that its lands are safe from confis- cation or arbitrary taxation. To power of every sort, excepting that of a triumphant de- mocracy, there must be some limits ; and great as the authority of the sultan is, he is too de- pendent on the religious feelings of his subjects to be able to overturn the church. The conse- quence is that the vacouf or church lands have been always free both from arbitrary taxation and confiscation; and hence they have formed a species of mortmain or entailed lands in the Ottoman dominions, enjoying privileges to which the other parts of the empire, excepting the estates of the dere beys, are entire sti-angers. Great part of the lands of Turkey, in many places amounting to one-third of the whole, were held by this religious tenure; and the device was frequently adopted of leaving pre perty to the ulema in trust for particular fami- lies, whereby the benefits of secure hereditary descent were obtained. The practical advan- tages of this ecclesiastical property are thus enumerated by Mr. Slade. "The vacouf (mosque lands) have been among the best cultivated in Turkey, by being free from arbitrary taxation. The mektebs (pub- lic schools) in all the great cities, where the ru- diments of the Turkish language and the Koran are taught, and where poor scholars receive food gratis, are supported by the ulema. The medressehs, imarets, (hospitals,) fountains, &c., are all maintained by the ulema; add to these the magnificence of the mosques, theii number, the royal sepultures, and it will be seen that Turkey owes much to the existence of this body, which has been enabled, by its power and its union, to resist royal cupidity. Without it, where would be the establishments I THE FALL OF TURKEY 271 above mentioned? Religions property has been an object of attack in ever)' countr)'. At one period, by the sovereign, to increase his power; at another, by the people, 'to build for- tunes on its downfall. Mahomet IV., after the disastrous retreatof his grand vizir, CaraMus- tapha, from before Vienna, 1683, seized on the riches of the principal mosques, which arbi- trary act led to his deposition. The ulema would have shown a noble patriotism in giv- ing its wealth for the service of the state, but it was right in resenting the extortion, which would have served as a precedent for succeed- ing sultans. In fine, rapid as has been the decline of the Ottoman empire since victory ceased to attend its arms, I venture to assert, that it would have been tenfold more rapid but fanish constitution of 1812, to the restoration of which, all the subsequent convulsions of the Revolutionary parly have been directed. It was evidently in the highest decree dfnwcraliral ; so much so, indeed, that the President of the American Congress has fully as much real power. The Cortes was elected by univcrtal suffrni^c ; there was no upper cham- ber or House of Peers to restrain its excesses; it was alone investcil with the right of v declainiin"' ag:ainst some remnants of despo- tism aiul "arbitrary power. Projects of laws succeeded each other without interruption ; and as every one of these projects was held to be an incontestible and urgent necessity, and to hesitate as to it would have been apparently to call in question the principles of the Revolu- tion, and evince a certain mark of aversion for the supremacy of the people, not one of them was either adjourned or rejected. Innu- merable commissions were established to ex- amine the projects of innovation ; reports made ; laws discussed and voted ; and the old legislation of the kingdom daily crumbled into dust, without a single individual in the country having either the time to read, or an opportu- nity to consider the innumerable institutions which were daily substituted, instead of those which had formerly existed." — I. 235. Alt tliese projects of reform, however, and all this vast confiscation of property, both ecclesiastical and civil, could not supply the continually increasing deficit of the treasury. Another, and still greater revolutionarj^ con- fiscation awaited the state, and to this, invin- cible necessity speedily led. " From the commencement of the next ses- sion of the Cortes, measures had been taken to facilitate the secularization of the religious orders of both sexes ; and many of them had already left their retreats, and rejoined their friends in the world. "At length matters came to a crisis. On the proposition of Colonel Sancho, a law was passed, which confiscated the ichole properly of the regular clergy to the service of the state. This law, adopted by the Cortes, was submitted to the royal sanction. The king evinced the utmost repugnance to a measure so directly subversive of all the religious opinions in which he had been educated. Terrified at this resistance, with which they had not laid their account, the revolutionary party had recourse to one of those methods which nothing can either au- thorize or justify, and for which success can offer no excuse. " Convinced that they could obtain only by terror what was refused to solicitation, they took the resolution to excite a popular sedition, organize a revolt, and excite a tumult to over- come the firmness of the king. For this pur- pose, they entered into communication with the runners of the revolutionary party, took into their confidence the leading orators of the clubs, and concerted measures in particular with the banker, Ikrtrand du Lys, who had always at his command a band of adventurers, ready to go wherever disorder was to be com- mitted. "The signal was given. The mobs assem- bled: Bands of vociferating wretches traversed the public streets, uttering frightful cries, and directing their steps to the arsenal. A slight demonstration of resistance was made ; but the report was speedily spread that the troops were unable to make head against the contin- laliy increasing mass of the insurgents, and that the life of the king was seriously menaced. The ministers presented themselves in that cri- tical moment; they renewed their instances, spoke of the public peace, order, and the life of the king, for which they declared they could not answer, if the public demands were refused • and finally drew from him a reluctant consent to the measure of spoliation. " This success, so dearly bought, was by no means attended with the good effects which had been anticipated from it. The people would have seen, without dissatisfaction, a share of the public burdens borne by the ecclesiastical body; but a total abolition, an entire extinction of their property, appeared to them a cruel persecution, a work of heresy and impiety, the horror of which reacted on all the measures which had the same origin. "The revolutionary party might have borne all the unpopularity which that exorbitant measure occasioned, if it had been attended with the immense consequences which had been anticipated in relieving the finances ; but in that particular also, all their hopes proved fallacious. The property of the clergy, wherx exposed to sale, found few purchasers. The known opposition of the Holy See, the exas* peration of the people, the dread of a revolu- tion : all these circumstances rendered the measure perfectly abortive, and caused it to add nothing to the resources of the treasury." — L 247—249. This is the usual progress of revolutionary movements. Terror! terror ! terror! That is the engine which they unceasingly put in force : Insurrections, mobs, tumults, the means of obtaining their demands, which they never fail to adopt. Demonstrations of physical strength, public meetings, processions, and all the other methods of displaying their numbers, are no- thing but the means of showing the opponents of their measures the fate which awaits them, if they protract their resistance bej'ond a cer- tain point. Force is their continual argument ; the logic of brickbats and stones ; the perspec- tive of scatfolds and guillotines, their never- failing resource. Confiscation of the property of others, the expedients to which they always have recourse to supply the chasms Avhich the disorganization of society and the dread of spoliation have occasioned in the public revenue. The usual leprosy of revolutionary convul- sions, Jacobin societies, and democratic clubs, were not long of manifesting themselves in this unhappy country. " On all sides, secret societies were formed, whose statutes and oaths evinced but too clearly the objects which they had in viev/. Besides the freemasons, who had long been established, a club was formed which took the title of Confederation of Comnwn Chevaliers, and declared themselves the champions of the perfect equality of the human race, and eman- cipated themselves in the very outset from all the restraints of philanthropy and moderation. To judge, to condemn, and to execute every in- dividual whatsoever, without excepting the king and his successors, if they abused their authority, was one of the engagements, a part of the oath which they took on entering into the society." " On the side of these secret societies oluba THE SPANISH REVOLUTION OF 1820. 285 rapidly arose, ■n-hich soon became powerful and active auxiliaries of anarch)', wherever it appeared. The most tumultuous and danger- ous of these was the Coffee-house of the Cross of Malta. There, and for long, the king was daily exposed to insult and derision, u-ilhout his ministers ever taking the smallest step to put an end to a scene nf scandal, with which all loyal sub- jects in the rea.m were horrorstruck. They hoped by thus abandoning the royal prey to his pursuers, to escape themselves from the fury of party; but their expectations were cruelly deceived. Public indignation speedily assailed them ; the bitterest reproaches were daily addressed to them. All their disgraceful transactions, all the revolts the)' had prepared to overawe the sovereign, were recounted and exaggerated. The transports of indignation were so violent, that soon they were compelled to close this club, to save themselves from in- stant destruction." — I. 261, 262. The Spanish Revolution was fast hastening to that deplorable result, a Reign of Terror, the natural consequence of democratic ascendency, when its course was cut short by the French invasion, under the Duke d'Angoulcme. The details on this subject are perfectly new, and in the highest degree instructive to the British public. " For long the revolutionary party had borne with manifest repugnance the system of mo- deration which the government had adopted, and the majority of the Cortes had supported, during the last session. That party proceeded on the principle, that terror alone could over- av^'e the enemies of the Revolution, and that nothing was to be gained with them by mo- deration in language or indulgence in action. It saw no chance of safety, but in a system of terror powerfully organized. The catastrophe of Naples, the submission of Piedmont, tlio re- pression of the insurrection attempted in France, furnished them with a favourable op- portunity to renew their efforts ; and from the reception which it then met with, it was evi- dent that the taste for blood was beginning to manifp^t itself among the people. " While things were taking this direction at Madrid, and the people were awaiting with a somhr*' disquietude the measures which wf-rc in preparation, the Reign of Terror and Vio- ]cr.zr had already commenced in the pnivinces, by the ciFccts of the supreme pnpiilnr will, and the progress of anarchy in every part of the kingdom. " Individuals of every age and sex were arresti'd and imprisoned, without the warrant of any of the constituted authorities, by men without a public character, on the mere orders of the chiefs of the revolutionary party, who thus usurped tlic most important functions of goveniment. They threw the individuals thus collected together into the first vessels which were at hand, or could be found in any of the ports of the kiiigilom, and Iransprntnl them, some to tiie Balearic, others to the Canary Islands, according to the caprice of the revolutionary rulers. " This is perhaps the event of all others in 'he histor)' of modern revolutions, so fertile in crimes, which excites, if not the greatest hor- ror, at least the greatest surprise : nothing can give a better idea of the true spirit of anarchy. Nothing was here done in disorder, or in one of those moments when the exaltation or de- lirium of the moment has become impossible to repress. It was calmly, with reflection, at leisure, and with the aid of numbers, who were ignorant of the spirit which ruled the move- ment, that they imprisoned, led forth from prison, tiirust on board vessels, and despatched for a distant destination, a multitude of citi- zens, proprietors, fathers of famikes, whom no law had condemned, no trial proved guilty; and all this by the means, and under the orders of a body of men who had no preten.sions to any legal authority. " These acts were committed in open day, at the same time at Barcelona, at Valencia, at Corunna, and Carthagena. This was anarchy in unbridled sovereignty ; and let us see what the legal authorities did to punish a series of acts so fatal to their influence, and of such ruinous example in a country already devour ed by revolutionary passions. "The government was informed of all that passed; the facts were public and incontest- able ; they were acted in the face of day, in the face of the entire population of cities. No prosecution was directed against the crimi- nals; no punishment was pronounced; no example was given. A few inferior function- aries, who had aided in the atrocious acts were deprived of their situations, and orders secretly despatched for the clandestine recall of the exiles. Such was the sole reparation made for an injuiy which shook the social edifice to its foundation, and trampled tinder foot all the rights and liberties of the citizens." —I. 287—290. The famous massacres in the prison on September 2, 1792, did not fail to find their imitators among the Spanish revolutionists. The following anecdote shows how precisely similar the democratic spirit is in its tendency and cfTecIs in all ages and parts of the world. "A priest, a chaplain of the king, Don Ma thias Vinucsa, was accused of having formed the plan of a counter-revolution. This absurd design, which he had had the imprudence to publish, was easily discovered, and Vinuesa was arrested and brought to trial. The law punished every attempt of this description which had not yet been put into c.vccution, with the galleys, and Vinuesa was, in virtue of this statute, condemned to ten years of hard labour in those dreary abodes. This sentence, of a kind to satisfy the most ardent passions, was the highest whieh the law would author- ize ; but it was very far indeed from coming up to the wishes of the revolutionary clnbs. "On the 4lh May, two days after the con- demnation of the prisoner, a crowded meeting look place at the gale of the Sim, in open day, when a mock trial took place, and the priest was by the club legislators condemned (o death. It was agreed that the judges should themselves execute the sentence, and that measure was resolved on amidst loud accia mations. Having resolved on this, they quiet- ly took their siesta, and at the appointed hour proceeded to carry it into execution, without J8C ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. the lejal authorities taking the slightest step to prevent the outrage. "At four o'clock the mob reassembled, and proceeded straight to the prison doors. No one opposed their tumultuous array ; they pre- cented themselves at the gate, and announced their mission. Ten soldiers, who formed the ordinary guard of the prison, made, for a few minutes, a shadow of i-esistance, which gave no sort of trouble to the assailants. The bar- riers were speedily broken ; the conquerors inundated the prison ; with hurried steps they sought the cell where the condemned priest was confined, and instantly broke open the door. The priest appeared with a crucifix in his hand; he fell at their feet, and in the name of the God of mercy, whose image he present- ed, besought them to spare his life. Vain at- tempt ! — to breasts which acknowledged no religion, felt no pity, what availed the image of God who died to save us. One of the judges of the gate of the Sun advanced. He was armed with a large hammer, and struck a severe blow at the head bowed at his feet. The victim fell, and a thousand strokes soon completed the work of death. Blood has flowed, the victim is no more. '' But the head which that hammer had slain, could not sutfice for the murderers. Besides the criminal there remained the judge. He also was condemned to die, for having only applied the existing law, and not foreseen the judgment which the tribunal of the Sun was to pass on the criminaL The assassins made straight to his house, amidst cries of 'Death to the traitors. Long live the constitution !' They traversed the town, and arrived at the house of the judge ; five men with drawn swords entered the house, after placing senti- nels around it, to prevent the possibility of escape. But Heaven did not permit that new murder to be committed. The judge, informed of what was going forward, had fled, in the interval between the first judgment and execu- tion, and the murderers, after covering him with execrations, dispersed themselves through the town to recount their exploits, and dwell with exultation on the commencement of the reign of terror. "In the evening, the clubs resounded with acclamations, and the expressions of the most intoxicating joy; and popular songs were composed and published, celebrating the first triumph of popular justice. No one ventured to hint at punishing the criminals. A few in- sulated individuals ventured to condemn them ; a thousand voices rose to applaud and defend them. The press joined its powerful eflforts to celebrate that memorable day; and, in fine, to commemorate the public exultation, a sort of monument was erected to perpetuate its re- collection. Vinuesa had fallen under the blows of a hammer; his murderers, and their pro- tectors, created a decoration, and instituted a sort of order, called the order nf the hammer. The ensigns of this new honour "were speedily fabricated ; they consisted in a little hammer of iron, made in imitation of that which had struck the fatal blow. The new chevaliers proudly decorated their bosoms with the in- signia. It bore an inscription, which, when divested of revolutionary jargon, amounted to this : ' On the 4th May, 1821, four or five hun dred men murdered in prison an old priest, who implored their pity. Behold and honoul one of the assassins.' "— L 297—299. The gradual decline of the moderate party under the increasing fervour of the times, and their final extinction in the Cortes, under the incessant attacks, and irresistible majorities of the revolutionists, is thus narrated: — " In the second session, it was no longer possible to recognize the Cortes of the first. They were the same individuals, but not the same legislators, or the same citizens. Worn out by a continual struggle with men whom nothing could either arrest or discourage ; dis- gusted with discussions, in which they were always interrupted by the hisses or groans of the galleries ; irritated by the attempts at civil war which were daily renewed in the pro- Aances ; heated by the burning political at- mosphere in which they found themselves immovably enclosed; the moderate deputies, who, in the preceding year, Ijad formed the majority of the Cortes to combat the forces of anarchy, gave up the contest, and yielded ivilhout opposition to whatever was demanded of them. "The most dangerous enemies of the public peace, be}^ond all question, were the Patriotic Societies. There it was that all heads were exalted — that all principles were lost amidst the extravagancies of a furious democracy — that all sinister projects were formed, and all criminal designs entertained. A wise law, the work of the first Cortes, had armed govern- ment with the power to close these turbulent assemblies, when they threatened the public tranquillity. But this feeble barrier could not long resist the increasing vehemence of the revolutionists. A law ^vas proposed, and speedily passed, which divested government of all control over these popular societies. It placed these agglomerations of fire beyond the reach of the police — forbid the magistrates to be present at their debates — substituted inter- nal regulations for external control — and, in- stead of any real check, recognised only the ' elusory responsibility of the presidents.' "Never, perhaps, did human folly to such a degree favour the spirit of disorder, or so weakly deliver over society to the passions which devoured it. Hardly was the law passed, when numbers who had been carried away by the public outcry, were terrified at the work of their own hands, and looked back with horror on the path on Avhich they had ad- vanced, and the vantage ground which they had for ever abandoned/'— L 302, 303. " The clubs were not slow in taking advan- tage of the uncontrolled power thus conceded to them. The most violent of their organs, which was at once the most dangerous and the most influential, because he incessantly espoused the cause of spoliation, Romero Al- fuente, published a pamphlet full of the most furious ebullitions of revolutionary zeal, in which he divulged a pretended conspiracy against the constitutional system, who^e rami- fications, diverging from Madrid, extended into the remotest provinces and foreign statesi The plans, the resources, the names, of tut. THE SPANISH REVOLUTION OF 1820. 287 conspirators, -were given with atTcctcd accu- racy ; nothing was omitted which could give to the discovery the air of truth. The electric spark is not more rapid in communicating its shock, than was that infamous libel. Never had the tribune of the Club of the Golden Fountain resounded with such menacing and sanguinary acclamations. They went even so far as to sa}' that the polilkal atmosphere eot'.ld not be purified but by the blood of fourteen or fifteen thousayid inhabilants of Madrid." — I. 351, 352. "In the midst of these ebullitions of revolu- tionary fury, the provinces were subjected to the most cruel excesses of anarchy. At Cadiz, Seville, and Murcia, the people broke out into open revolt ; the authorities imposed by the Cortes were all overthrown, and the leaders of the insurrection installed in their stead. All tlie vigour and reputation of Mina could not prevent the same catastrophe at Corunna. He resigned his command, and Latre. the insurrec- tionarv leader, stepped into his place. Every- where the authority of government, and of the Central Cort^, was disregarded ; the most vio- lent revoluiionists got the ascendant, and so- ciety was fast descending towards a stale of utter dissolution. "All these disorders, all these excesses, found in flic capital nunmvus and ardent defenders. The press, in particular, everywhere applauded and encou- raged the anarchists; it incessantly exalted the demagogues, for whom it proudly accepted the title of Descajnisados, (shirtless,) and for Avhose excesses it found ample precedents among our Sans Culottes. It condemned to contempt, or marked out for proscription, all the wise men who yet strove to uphold the remnants of the Spanish monarchy. Occupied without inter- mission in detracting from all the attributes of the monarchical power; in dragging in the gut- ter the robe of royalty, in order to hold it up to the people covered with mire; it invented for all the mnnarchs of Europe the most calum- nious epithets and ridiculous comparisons, and ofTered to the factious of every state in Europe, whatever their designs were, the succours of their devouring influence." — I. 357, 358. "Three evils, in an especial manner, spread the seeds of dissolution over this agitated countr}', and spread their ramifications with the most frightful rapidity. These were the press, with its inexpressilde violence, and its complete impunity; the petitions which ren- dered the tribune of the Cortes the centre <»f denunciations, the focus of calumny, and the arena where all the furious passions contended with each other; in fine, the licentiousness of the patriotic societies, where the public peace was every day, or rather every night, drlivcrcd up to the fury of an unbridled d'-inocracy. The Cortes were perfectly aware of these causes of anarchy ; they had openly denounced them, and declared their intention of applying a prompt remedy. Still nothing was (lone, nml the Assembly was dissolved without having ''one anv thing to close so many fountains of anarchy.'"— I. 377. One would imagine that the accumulation of Bo many evils woi.'d have produced a reaction '.n the public mind; that the universal anxiety, distress, and sufTeriug, would have opened the eyes of the people to their real interests, and the pernicious tendency of the course into which they had been precipitated by their de- magogues; and that the new elections would have produced a majority in favour of the pru- dent and restraining measures, from which alone public safety could be expected. The case, however, was just the reverse : the revo- lutionary party, by violence and intimidation, almost everywhere gained the ascendency; and the fatal truth soon became apparent, that democratic ambition is insatiable ; that it is blind to all the lessons of experience, and deaf to all the cries of suffering; that like a mad- dened horse, it rushes headlong down the pre- cipice, and never halts in its furious career till it has involved itself and public freedom in one common ruin. " The new Cortes commenced its labours under the most sinister auspices; the circum- stances under which the electiorts had taken place were sufficient to justify the most serious apprehensions. "The elections in the south had taken place under the immediate influence and actual pre- sence of open rebellion. At Grenada, the peo- ple by force intruded into the electoral college, and openly overwhelmed the election ; in all the provinces of the north, the proprietors had absented themselves from the elections, from hatred at the Revolution, and a sense of inabil- ity to restrain its excesses. At Madrid, even, all the partisans of the old regime had been constrained to abstain from taking any part in the vote, notwithstanding the undoubted right which the amnesty gave them. In many places, actual violence ; in all, menaces were employed, with too powerful edect, to keep from the poll all persons suspected of modera- tion in their principles. " In the whole new Cortes not one great pro- prietor nor one bishop was to be found. The whole body of the noblesse was represented only by two or three tilled but unknown men; the clergy by a few curates and canons, well known for the lightness with which the re- straints of faith sat upon them. Only one grandee of Spain was to be found there, the Duke did Parfpie, whf this important station : all the resources of art, all the wealth of the imperial treasury, were lavished upon its fortification; ramparts after ramparts, bastion after bastion, surround- ed its ample harbour; docks capable of hold- ing the whole navy of France were excavated, and the greatest fleet which ever menaced England assembled within its walls. Before the fall of his power, thirty-five ships of the line were safely moored under its cannon ; lie held to it with tenacious grasp under all the vicissitudes of his fortune, and wlu'n the Allies appro.nched its walls, he sent the ablest and firmest of the republicans, Carnot, to prolong even to the last extremity its means of defence. "If the allies were encamped," said he in the Legislative Body, on the :Hst March, 1S13, "on the heights of Monlmarire, I would not surrender one village in the thirty-second military division." Though hard pressed in the centre of his dominions, he still clung to this important 'bulwark. When the Old (inard was maintaining a desperate strugi;lc in the plains of Champagne, lie drafted not a man from the fortifications of the Scheldt; and when the conqueror was struck to the earth, his rigiit hand still held the citadel of Ant- werp. In all former times, and centuries before the labour of Napoleon had added so immensely to its importance, the Scheldt had been thfi iQQ ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. centre of the most important preparations for the invasion of Englg.nd, and the spot on which military genius always fixed from ■whence to prepare a descent on this island. An immense expedition, rendered futile by the • weakness and vacillation of the French mo- narch, was assembled in it in the fourteenth century ; and sixty thousand men on the shore of the Scheldt awaited only the signal of Charles VI.* to set sail for the shore of Kent. The greatest naval victory ever gained by the English arms was that at Sluys, in 1340, when Philip of France lost thirty thousand men and two hundred and thirty ships of war, in an en- gagement off the Flemish coast with Edward III.,f a triumph greater, though less noticed in history, than either that of Cressy or Poictiers. When the great Duke of Parma was commis- sioned by Philip IL of Spain to take steps for the invasion of England, he assembled the forces of the Low Countries at Antwerp ; and the Spanish armada, had it proved successful, was to have wafted over that great commander from the banks of the Scheldt to the opposite shore of Essex, at the head of the veterans who had been trained in the Dutch war. In an evil hour, Charles II., bought by French gold and seduced by French mistresses, enter- ed into alliance with Louis XIV. for the co- ercion of Holland ; the Lilies and the Leopards, the navies of France and England, assembled together at Spithead, and made sail for the French coast, while the armies of the Grande Monarque advanced across the Rhine into the heart of the United Provinces. The conse- quence was, such a prodigious addition to the power of France, as it took all the blood and treasure expended in the war of the Succession and all the victories of Marlborough, to reduce to a scale at all commensurate with the inde- pendence of the other European states. Mr. Pitt, how adverse soever to engage in a war with republican France, was driven to it by the advance of the tricolour standard to the Scheldt, and the evident danger which threat- ened English independence from the posses- sion of its fortresses by the French armies ; and the event soon proved the wisdom of his foresight. The surrender of the Low Coun- tries, ari:ung from the insane demolition of its fortresses by the Emperor Joseph, soon brought the French armies to Amsterdam; twenty years of bloody and destructive war; the slaughter of millions, and the contraction of eight hundred millions of debt by this country, followed the victorious march of the French armies to the banks of the Scheldt; while seventeen years of unbroken rest, a glorious peace, and the establishment of the liberties of Europe upon a firm basis, immediately suc- ceeded their expulsion from them by the anns of Wellington. Before these sheets issue from the press, an English and French fleet will have sailed from the British shores to co-operate with a French army ix nES-roniNO Antwkup to Frajjce. The tricolour flag has floated alongside of the British pendant ; the shores of Spithead, which ♦ Kismondi, Hist, de France, xi. 387. t Hume, ii. 230. never saw a French fleet but as prizes^ Iiavs witnessed the infamous coalition, and the un- conquered citadels of England thundered with salutes to the enemies who fled before them at Trafalgar ! Antwerp, with its dockyards and its arsenals; Antwerp, with its citadel and its fortifications ; Antwerp, the outpost and stronghold of France against English inde« pendence, is to be purchased by British blood for French ambition ! Holland, the old and faithful ally of England ; Holland, which has stood by us in good and evil fortune for one hundred and fifty years ; Holland, the bulwark of Europe, in every age, against Gallic ag- gression, is to be partitioned, and sacrificed in order to plant the standards of a revolutionary power on the shores of the Scheldt ! Deeply has England already drunk, deeper still is she destined to drink of the cup of national hu- miliation, for the madness of the last two years. Disgraceful as these proceedings are to the national honour and integrity of England; far as they have lowered its ancient flag be- neath the degradation it ever reached in the darkest days of national disaster, their impolicy is, if possible, still more conspicuous. Flan- ders, originally the instructor, has in every age been the rival of England in manufactures;; Holland, being entirely a commercial state, and depending for its existence upon the car- rying trade, has in every age been her friend. The interest of these different states has led to this opposite policy, and must continue to do so, until a total revolution in the channels of commerce takes place. Flanders, abounding with coal, with capital, with great cities, and a numerous and skilful body of artisans, has from the earliest dawn of European history, been conspicuous for her manufactures ; Hoi land, without any advantages for the fabricat- ing of articles, but immense for their trans- port, has, from the establishment of Dutch independence, been the great carrier of Eu- rope. She feels no jealousy of English ma- nufactures, because she has none to compete with them ; she feels the greatest disposition to receive the English goods, because all those which are sent to her add to the riches of the United Provinces. Belgium, on the other hand, is governed by a body of manu- facturers, who are imbued with a full propor- tion of that jealousy of foreign competition which is so characteristic in all countries of that profession. Hence, the Flemish ports have always been as rigorously closed as the Dutch were liberally opened to British manu- factures ; and at this moment, not only are the duties on the importation of British goods greatly higher in Flanders than they are in Holland, but the recent policy of the former country has been as much to increase as that of the other has been to lower its import bur- dens. Since the Belgian revolution, the duties on all the staple commodities of England, coal, woollens, and cotton cloths, have been loivered by the Dutch government ; but the fervour of their revolutionary gratitude has led to no such measure on the part of the Belgians. This difference in the policy of the two states being founded on their habits, interests PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHEKLANDS. 291 and physical situation, must continue perma- nently to distinguish them. Dynasties may rise or tail : but as long as Flanders, -with its great coal mines and iron foundcries, is the rival of England in those departments of in- dustrj' in which she most excels, it is in vain to expect that any cordial reception of British manufactures is to take place within her pro- rinces. The iron forgers of Liege, the wool- 1 "len manufacturers or cotton operatives of I Ghent or Bruges, will never consent to the free ' importation of the cutler}'- of Birmingham, the woollen cloths of Yorkshire, the muslins of j Glasgow, or the cotton goods of Manchester. I But no such jealousy is, or ever Avill be, felt I by the merchants of Amsterdam, the carriers I of Rotterdam, or the shipmasters of Flushing. I Flanders always has been, and always Avill desire to be, incorporated with France, in or- der that her manufactures may feel the vivify- ing influence of the great home market of that populous country; Holland always has been, and always will desire to be, in alliance with England, in order that her commerce may ex- perience the benefit of a close connection with the great centre of the foreign trade of ihe world. Ever}' one practically acquainted with these matters, knows that Holland is at this moment almost the only inlet which continental jea- lousy will admit for British manufactures to the continent of Europe. The merchants of London know whether they can obtain a ready vent for their manufactures in the ports of France or the harbours of Flanders. The ex- port trade to France is inconsiderable; that to Flanders trifling; but that to Holland is im- mense. It takes off 2,000,000/. worth of our exports, and employs 350,000 tons of shipping, about a seventh of the whole shipping of Great Britain. Were it not for the facilities to Bri- tish importation, afforded by the commercial interests of the Dutch, our manufactures would be well nigh excluded from the continent of Europe. The Scheldt, when guarded by French batteries, and studded with republican sails, may become the great artery of Euro- pean, hut unquestionably it will not lie of Eng- lish commerce. The great docks of Antwerp may be amply filled with the tricolour flag; but they will .see but few of the British pen- dants. In allyintr ourselves with the Belgians, we are seeking ti> gain th*" frii-ndship of our itiiral rivals, and to strengthen what will •on become a province of our hereditary 'iiemies; in alienating the Dutch, we are ' sing our long-established customers, and '•ak<'iiing the state, which, in every a^'e, has been felt to be the outwork of British inde- pend<"nce. But it is not the ruinous consequences of 'his monstrous coalition of the two great re- iluiionary powers of Europe against Ihe liberty an(i independence of the smaller slates which are chiefly to be deplored. It is the shameful injustire of the proceeding, the pro- fligate disregard of treaties which it involves, the open abandonment of national honour which it proclaims, which constitute its worst features. We have not yet lived so long un- j*r democratic rule as to have become habitu- ated to the principles of iniquity, to have beea accustomed, as in revolutionary France, to have spoliation palliated on the footing of ex- pedience, and robbery justified by the weak- ness of its victim. We have not yet learned to measure political actions by their success; to praise conquest to the skies when it is on the side of revolution, and load patriotism with obloquy when it is exerted in defence of regulated freedom. We are confident that the British seamen under any circumstances will do their duty, and we do not see how Holland can resist the fearful odds which are brought against her; but recollecting that there is a moral government of nations, that there is a God who governs the world, and that the sins of the fathers, in nations as well as individuals, will be visited upon the children, we tremble to think of its consequences, and conscien- tiously believe that such a triumph may ulti- mately prove a blacker day for England, than if the army of Wellington had been dispersed in the forest of Soignies, or the fleet of Nelson swallowed up in the waves of Trafalgar. What is chiefly astonishing, and renders it painfully apparent that revolutionary ambition has produced its usual effect in confounding and undermining all the moral feelings of man- kind in this country, is the perfect indifierence with which Ihc part il ion of Holland is regarded by all the Movement party, as contrasted with the unmeasured lamentations with which they have made the world resound for the partition of Poland. Yet if the matter be impartially considered, it will be found that our conduct in leaguing with France for the partition of the Netherlands, has been miirli more infamous than that of the eastern potentates was in the subjugation of Poland. The slightest historical retrospect must place this in the clearest light. Poland was of old, and for centuries before her fall, the standing enemy of Russia. Twice the Polish armies penetrated to the heart of her empire, and the march of Napoleon to the Kremlin had been anticipated five centuries before by the arms of the Jagellons. Austria had been delivered from Turkish invasion by John Sobieski, but neither that power nor Prussia were bound to guaranty the integrity of the Polish dominions, nor had they ever been in alliance with it for any length of time The instability of I'olish policy, arising from the deuKicratic stale of its government, the perpetual vacillation of its councils, and the weakness and ineflicicncy of its external con- duct, had fi)r centuries been such that no lengthened or sustained operation could be ex- pected frmn its forces. It n-mained in the midst of the mililary inonarchii-s a monument of democratic madness, a prey to the most frightful internal anarchy, and unable to resist the most inconsiderable external aggression. Its situation and discord rendered it the naturnl prey of its more vigorous andeflicient military neighbours. In coml)iniiig for its partition, ihey effected what was on their ])art an atrocious act of injustice; but will ultimately prove, as Lord Brougham long ago observed,* the most beneficial change for the ultimate ♦ Colonial Policy 292 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. nappiness of its people, by forcibly repressing their democratical passions, and turning its wild but heroic spirit into the channels of rculated and useful patriotism. In dividing Poland, the three powers incurred the guilt of robbers who plunder a caravan, which, from internal divisions, is unable to defend itself ; Austria was guilty of black ingratitude in assailing her former deliverer; but Russia violated no oaths, brbke no engagements, be- trayed no treachery — she never owed any thing to Poland — she was her enemy from first to last, and conquered her as such. We attempt ao vindication of this aggression ; it was the work of ruthless violence, alike to be stigma- tized in a monarchical as a republican power. We observe only how Providence overrules even human iniquity to purposes finally bene- ficent. But what shall we say to the partition of the Netherlands, effected by France and England in a moment of profound peace, when its do- minions were guarantied by both these powers, and it had done nothing to provoke the hostility of either ? Can it be denied that we, in com- mon with all the allied powers, guarantied to the King of the Netherlands his newly created dominions'! The treaty of 1815 exists to dis- prove the assertion. Has Holland done any injury to Great Britain or France to justify their hostility'? Has she laid an embargo on their ships, imprisoned their subjects, or con- fiscated their property 1 Confessedly she has done none of these things. Has she abandoned us in distress, or failed to succour us, as by treaty bound, in danger 1 History proves the •reverse: for one hundred and fifty years she has fought by our side against our common enemies ; she has shared alike in the disaster of Lafelt and Fontenoy, and the triumphs of Eamillies and Oudenarde, of Malplaquet and Waterloo. Has she injured the private or public interests of either of the powers who now assail her 1 Has she invaded their pro- vinces, or laid siege to their fortresses, or blockaded their harbours 1 The idea of HoU land, with her 2,500,000 souls, attempting any of these things against two nations who count above fifty millions of inhabitants in their dominions, is as ridiculous as it would be to suppose an infant in its nurse's arms to make war on a mounted dragoon of five-and-twenty. What then has she done to provoke the par- tition of the lords of the earth and the ocean 1 She has resisted the march of revolution, and refused to surrender her fortresses to re^rQ. lutionary robbery, and therein, and therein alone, she has offended. But this is not all. Unprincipled as such conduct would have been, if it had been the whole for which this country had to blush, it is but a part of the share which England and France have taken in this deplorable trans- action. These powers were not only allies of tha King of the Netherlands ; they had not only solemnly guarantied the integrity of his domi- nions, but they had accepted, with the other Rllied powers, the office of mediators and arbiters between nmi and his revolted subjects ; and they have now united to spoliate the party u-ho tiade the reference. To the violence of an ordi- nary robber, they have superadded the abando» ' ment of a friend and the partiality of a judges It is this lamentable combination of unprincipled qualities, which makes our conduct in this transaction the darkest blot on our annals, and will ultimately render the present era one for which posterity will have more cause to blush than for that when John surrendered his do- minions to the Papal legate, or Charles gifted away to French mistresses the honour and the i integrity of England. The Revolution of the Three Glorious Days, which has, for the last two years, steeped i France in misery and Paris in blood, having i excited the revolutionary party in every part! of Europe to unheard-of transports, Brussels, ' in order not to be behind the great centre of ': democracy, rose in revolt against its sove- reign, and the King of Belgium was expelled from its walls. An attack of the Dutch troops, ill planned and worse executed, having been defeated, the King of the Netherlands applied to England to restore him by force to the throne which she had guarantied. This took place in October, 1830, when the Duke of Wellington was still in power. To have interfered with the lan*l and sea forces of England to restore the Dutch king to the throne of Belgium, would, at that juncture, have been highly perilous. It was doubtful whether we were bound to have afforded such aid, — the guarantee contained in the treaty of ■ 1815 being rather intended to secure the do- minions of the Netherlands against foreign aggression, than to bind the contracting parties to aid him in stifling domestic revolt. At all events it was certain that such a proceeding would at once have roused the revolutionary party throughout Europe, and would have afforded France a pretext, of which she would instantly and gladly have availed herself, for interfering with her powerful armies, in favour of her friends, among the Belgian Jacobins. The Duke of Wellington, therefore, judged wisely, and with the prudence of a practised statesman, when he declined to lend such aid to the dispossessed monarch, and tendered the good offices of the allied powers to mediate in an amicable way between the contending parties. The proffered mediation coming from such powers as Russia, Austria, Prussia, France, and England, could not possibly have been re- sisted by the Dutch States; and the offer of their good offices M'as too valuable to be de- clined. They agreed to the offer, and on this basis the London Conference assembled. This was the Avhole length that matters had gone, when the Duke of Wellington resigned in No- vember, 1830; and most unquestionably no- thing was farther from the intentions of the British ministry at that period, as the Duke of Wellington has repeatedly declared in Parlia- ment, than to have acted in any respect with- out the concurrence of the other powers, or to have made this mediation a pretext for the forcible partition of the Dutch dominions. But with the accession of the Whigs to power commenced a diflTerent system. They at once showed, from their conduct, that they were actuated by that unaccountable partialitj for French democracy, which has ever since PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS. 89d 1789 distinguished their party, and for which the great writers of its Revolution have them- selves not scrupled to censure Mr. Fox and all his adherents. " The opposition in England," says .Madame de Stacil, " with Mr. Fox at their head, were entirely wrong in the opinion they formed regarding Bonaparte ; and in conse- quence that party, formerly so much esteemed, entirely lost its ascendency in Great Britain. It was going far enough to have ikfcndcdthe French devolution through the Reign of Terror; but no fault could be greater than to consider Bona- parte as holding to the principles of the Revo- lution, of which he was the ablest destro3-er."* The same blind admiration for revolutionary France, which Lord Grey had manifested from the outset of his career, was imbibed with in- creased ardour by his whole administration, upon the breaking out of the Three Glorious Days ; and the King of the Netherlands soon found, to his cost, that instead of an equitable and impartial arbitrator, he had got a ruthless and partial enemy at the Conference, in Great Britain. , The first measure in which this altered tem- per was publicly manifested, was by the per- mission of England to Leopold to accept the crown of Belgium. This at once dissevered, and rendered irretrievable, without a general war, the separation of that country from Hol- land, because it established a revolutionary inte- rest, and that too of the strongest kind, dependent on the maintenance of that separation. This step was a clear departure from the equity of an arbitrator and a judge, because it rendered final and irrevocable the separation which it was the object of the mediation to heal, and which, but for the establishment of that revo- lutionary interest, would speedily have been closed. In truth, the Belgians were, after a )'ear's experience, so thoroughly disgusted with their revolution ; they had suflcred so dreadfully under the tyrants of their own choosing; starvation and misery had stalked in so frightful a manner through their popu- lous and once happy streets, that they were rapirlly becoming prepared to have rrturncd umlfr the mihl government of the House of Orange, when this decisive step, by establish- ing a revolutionary interest on the throne, for r vcr blighted these opening prospects of rc- Hirning tranquillity and peace. But the matter did not rest here. France and England concluded a treaty in Jiilv, IH31, eight months after the accession of the Whigs lo orticc , a treaty by which they guarunlird to Jj^njiold hit revolniionary domininnx, including thai part of territory which included Macs- (richt, the frontier fortress nf the old (nitrd Prn- rinrr^, with the noble fortress of Luxemburir; and the free navigation of the Scheldt. This outrageous step was ruinous to Holland. The terms which it imposed on the King of the Nethcrlantls, especially the surrender of Maes- tricht and Luxemburg, and the navigation of Dutch waters by the Belgians, were utterly destructive of that country. It was the same thing as if the free navigation of the Mersey and the Thames had been guarantied to the ♦ Ke r. Franc, ii. 270. manufacturers of France and Belgium. The guarantee of Limburg and Luxemburg, includ* ing Maestricht, to Belgium, was still more un- pardonable, because Luxemburg was part of the old patrimonii of the Hoitae of Nassau, and Limburg, with its Isarrier fortress Maestricht^ was no part of Belgium, but of Holland, proper' ly so called. Holland could not part with them, if she had the slightest regard to her future safety. After Maestricht, its old bulwark on the side of France, and Antwerp, its new bulwark on the side of Flanders, were lost, its inde- pendence was an empty name. Determined to perish rather than yield to such ruinous conditions, the King of the Ne- therlands declared war against the new King of Belgium, and then was seen what a slight hold the revolutionary party possessed of the Flemish people. The revolutionary rabble were defeated in two pitched battles ; the fumes of the Belgian revolt were dissipated ; counter movements were beginning in Ghent and the principal towns in the Netherlands, and Brussels was within half an hour of fall- ing into the hands of its lawful monarch, when the armies of France and the fleet of England, yielding to the demand of Leopold, and bound by the guarantee contained in the revolutionary treaty, advanced to support the cause of revolution. The consequences might easily have been foreseen. The armies of Holland were checked in the mid-career of victory, Brussels preserved for its cowardly revolutionary tyrants, and the ulcer of the Belgian revolts, when on the point of being closed, preserved open in the centre of Eu- rope. The King of the Netherlands gained some- thing by this vigorous step ; the Frt-nch saw the utter worthlessness of their revolutionary allies; the crying injustice of demanding the cession of Maestricht and Luxemburg became tfio great even for the governments of the me- diating powers, and the protocols took a new direction, -\ntwerp, and a free navigation of the Dutch waters, became now the great ob- ject on which France and England insisted, though it involved, by transferring the trade of the Uniled Provinces to the Il<'lL;ian territo- ry, the most serious injury of Holland. That is the point which has since been insisted on; that is the object for which we are now to plunge into an iniquitous anng, prepare for a descent on the shores of Kent. What would the English people, and the friends of fireedora throughout the world, say lo such a proceeding 1 Yet this is precisely what the English people have been led, blindfold, by their Whig rulers, and the revolutionary press, to do ! If his character is not totally destroyed, terrible will be the wakening of the Lion when he is roused from his slumber. The hired journals of government, sensible that the conduct of their rulers on this vital question will not bear examination, endeavour to lay it upon the shoulders of the Allied Powers^ and affect to lament the meshes in which they were left by the foreign policy of Lord Aberdeen. Of all absurdities, this is the great- est; Russia, Prussia, and Austria, arc so far from sanctioning the attack on the King of the Netherlands, that they have solemnly pro- tested against it; and Prussia, preparing to second her words by blows, has concentrated her armies on the Meuse. The King of the Ne- therlands professes his willingness still to sub mil the question of Antwerp and the Scheldt to the five Allied Powers, though he refuse to yield them up to the imperious demand of two of them. How, then, is it possible to involve the other Allied Powers in an iniquity of which they positively disapprove, and for which they are preparing to make war 1 True, they signed the treaty which gave Antwerp to Belgium, and their reasons for doing so, and the grounds on which they are to justify it, we leave it to them and their paid journalists to unfold. But they have positively refused to sanction the employment of force to coerce the Dutch; and without that, the revolutionary rabble of Bel- gium may thunder for ever against the citadel of Antwerp. But because the three powers M-ho signed the treaty for the partition of Poland, have also signed the treaty for the partition of the Nether- lands, is that any vindication for our joining in the spoliation? When two robbers unite Ic waylay a traveller, is it any excuse for them that time olhcis have agreed to the conspiracy' We were told that arbitrary despotic govern ments alone commit injustice, and that with the triumph of the people, and the extension of democracy, the rule of justice and equitj was to commence. How then are revolu- tionary France and revolutionary England the foremost in the work of partition, when tht other powers, ashamed of their signature a< the disgraceful treaty, hang lack, and refuse to put It in force ! Is this the onnmencement of tin; fair rule of democratic justice? A treaty, which the three absolute powers, the/)(jr- liliontrM of Poland, are atliamrd of, the revolu- tionary powers have no scruple in enl'orcing — an inii|uitv which Russia and .\ustria refuse to eommii, France and England are ready to perpetrate! The pretence that we are involved in all this ihrouirh the diplomacy of the Tories, is such ? monstrous perversion of truth as cannot blind any l»ut tin" most ignorant readers. When was the treaty which guarantied Leopold'> dominions signed by France and England 1 in July. 1831; eight months after the accession of the Whigs to ollice. When was the treaty giving Antwerp to Ueli;ium, siirnrd by the live powers? In Novemt)i>r, 1S31. a year after the retirement of tlie Duke of Wellington froni 896 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. power. What treaty did the Duke of Welling- •on leave binding on his successors, in regard to Belgium? The treaty of 1815, which gua- rantied to the King of the Netherlands his whole dominions. What incipient mediation did he leave them to complete 1 That of the jh'c Allied Powers, for the pacific settlement of ihe Belgian question. And yet we are told he involved Great Britain in a hostile aggression on Holland, and was the author of a measure of robbery by two of the mediating powers! To give a show of equity to their spoliation, the revolutionary powers have summoned Leopold to surrender Venloo, and declare that Holland is to retain Luxemburg and Lim- burg. This is a mere colourable pretext, desti- tute of the least weight, and too flimsy to de- ceive any one acquainted with the facts. Litx- emburg always was in the hands of the Dutch ; it formed part of the old patrimony of the house of Nassau, and the Belgians have no more right to that great fortress, or its ter- ritory, than they have to Magdebourg or Lisle. Venloo is a fortress of third-rate importance, about as fair an equivalent for Antwerp as Conway would be for Liverpool. Who ever heard of any works of Napoleon on Venloo, or any effort on his part to retain it as part of the outworks of his conquering dominions ? Ven- \o6 is situated on the right or German bank of the Meuse, and never belonged to Belgium ; so that to consider it as a compensation for the great and magnificent fortress of Antwerp, the key of the Scheldt, is as absurd as it would be to speak of Harwich as a compensation for London. Hitherto we have argued the question on the footing of the real merits of the points at issue, and not the subordinate question on which the negotiations finally broke off. But here, too, the injustice of the proceeding is not less manifest than in the general nature of the transaction. It wa-; stipulated by the treaty of 15th No- vember, 1821, signed by all the Allied Powers, that the evacuation of the provinces to be mu- tually ceded on both sides, should take place after the exchange of the ratification of a final peace. Of course, Antwerp was held by Hol- land, and Venloo by Belgium, until that event; and on that fooling they have been held for the last twelve months. But what do France and England now require 1 Why, that Antwerp should be ceded by Hol- land before the treaty is either signed or agreed to, and when Aveighty matters are still in de- pendence between the contracting parties. The advantages which the King of the Ne- therlands holds, the security he possesses by holding that great fortress, is to be instantly abandoned, and he is to be left, without any se- airily, to the tender mercies of the father-in-law of his enemy, and the friendly sympathy of their democratic allies in this island. Is this justl Is it consistent with the treaty of No- vember, 1831, on which England and France justify their armed interference] Is it not evidently a violation of both ? and does not it eave the revolutionary states as much in the wrong on the last disputed point of the Con- ference as on its general spirit 1 The answer of the King of the Netherlands to the summons of France and England to surrender the citadel of Antwerp, is so deci- sive of the justice of his cause on this point, that we cannot refrain from quoting it: — " Holland having acceded, not to the treaty of the 15th of November, 1831, but to the greater part of its arrangements, must found its proceedings on the stipulations which i*. has accepted. Among the articles agreed to in concert with the Conference of London, is in- cluded the evacuation, in a fixed time after the exchange of the ratifications of the territories which were respectively to change hands, which point was regulated by the last of the 24 articles of 15th October, 1831, by the treaty of I5th November, and in the projects of con- vention which have followed it. If, on the 11th June, the Conference proposed the 20th July, for the evacuation of the respective ter- ritories, it declared, by its note of 20th July, that in making this proposal, it had thought tKat the treaty between Holland and Bcigium would be ratified. To effect the evacuation at a time anterior to the exchange of the ratifica- tions, would be acting in opposition both to the formally announced intentions of the Con- ference, and to the assent which has been given to them by the government of the Ne- therlands." "It is true," says the Times, "that the terri- tories were not to be evacuated on each side till the ratifications of a general peace are ex- changed." This puts an end to the argument : we have not a shadow of justice for our de- mand of the immediate evacuation of Antwerp, any more than for the preceding treaty, which assigned it to Belgium. The war in which, to serve their new and dearly-beloved revolutionary allies, and enable them to regain their menacing point to our shores, we are now about to be involved, may last ten days or ten years : it may cost 500,000?. or 500,000,000/.: all that is in the womb of fate, and of that Ave know nothing; but the justice of the case in either event remains the same. That )vhich is done is done, and can- not be undone: the signature of England has been aflixed to the treaty with revolutionary France for the partition of our allies, and there it will remain for ever, to call down the judg- ment of Heaven upon the guilty nation which permitted, and the execrations of posterity on the insane administration which effected it. In this Avar, our rulers have contrived to get us into such a situation, that by no possibility can Ave derive either honour, advantage, or se- curity, from the consequences to Avhich it may lead. If the French and English are Aactorious, and Ave succeed in storming the citadel of Antwerp for the tricolour flag, will England be a gainer by the victor)^ — will our commerce be improved by surrendering the navigation of the Scheldt into the hands of the jealous manufacturers of France and Belgium, and for ever alienating our old and Avilling custom- ers in the United Provinces 1 Will our na- tional security be materially improved by placing the magnificent dockyards, and spa- cious arsenals, and impregnable fortifications, which Napoleon erected for our subjugation. PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS. 297 in the hands of a revolutionary King of France anl his warlike and able prime minister? If ■we are defeated, is the honour of England, the conqueror of France, likely to be upheld, or its influence increased, by our inability to bully a fifth-rate power, even with the aid of our Jaco- bin allies? Whatever occurs, whether Hol- land submits in five days, or holds out bravely and nobly for five years; whether the united tricolour and the leopard arc victorious or are vanquished, we can derive nothing but humili- ation, danger, and disgrace from the event. We shall certainly incur all the losses and bur- dens of war : we can never obtain either its advantages or its glories. Every man in England may possibly soon be compelled to ten pounds in the hundred to undo the whole fruits of our former victories, and give back Antwerp to France ! ! ! Jlnd give back Antwerp to France.'.'! This is the first fruits of our Whig diplomacy, and our new revolutionary alliance. Will the surrender of Portsmouth or Plymouth, or of an hundred ships of the line, be the second?* In making those observations, we disclaim all idea of imputing to ministers any inten- tional or wilful abandonment of the interests and honour of England. We believe that as Englishmen and gentlemen, they are incapa- ble of such baseness. What we assert is, that the passion for innovation, and their long-esta- blished admiration of France, have blinded their eyes ; that they are as incapable of see- ing the real consequences of their actions, as a young man is in the first fervour of love, or an inmate of bedlam in a paroxysm of insanity. From this sickening scene of aggression, spoliation, and robbery, we turn with pride and admiration to the firm and dignified, yet mild and moderate language of the Dutch govern- ment There was a time, when their conduct in resisting the partition of their country by two powerful and overbearing revolutionary neighbours, would have called forth the unani- mous sympathy and admiration of the British people: when they would have compared it lo the Ion.' ' uf the House of Nassau, and «he in! courage of that illusirioiis chief, wli.., •. Ii. n the armies of Louis XIV. were at the gales of Amsterdam, declared that he knew one way to avoid seeing the disgrace of his conntr}'. and that was to die in the last ditch. We cannot believe that revolutionary passion I have so complctrly changed the nati. hole people in so short a time, as to render them insensible to such heroic conduct: at all events, for the honour of hu- man nature, wc cannot forbear the gratifica- tion of adorning our pages by the fi. Mowing quotation from the last reply of the .Statcs- Gen.Tal of Holland to the speech of the King of the Netherlands, announcing the approach- ing atlack of France and England. " Never did the Siates-CJeneral approach the throne with feelings similar to those of the presen. moment. They had fostered the well- • Of roiirsc Ihn surrender of Antwerp to revoltillonnrv Belciiirn, eovcrnrd liy llic (inn-in-l.i\v nf rrnnr.-, i<, in other worJs, a aiirrenilor to tlie great parent (leiiiorracv itself. ' grounded hope that equitable arrangements would have put a period to the pressure on the countr}', but this just expectation has been dis- appointed. The States-General are grieved at the course of the negotiations. Whilst we are moderate and indulgent, demands are made on us which are in opposition to the honour and the independence of the nation; a small but glorious state is sacrificed to a presumed gene- ral interest. It makes a deep impression to see that foreign powers entertain a feeling in favour of a people torn from us by violence and perfidy — a feeling leading to our destruc- tion — instead of experiencing from the great powers aid in upholding our rights. The clouds that darken the horizon might lead to discouragement, were it not for the conviction of the nation that she does not deserve this treatment, and that the moral energy which en- abled her to make the sacrifices already ren- dered, remains in undiminished strength to support her in the further sacrifices necessary for tiie conservation of the national indepen- dence; that energy ever shone most brilliant when the country was most in danger, and had to resist the superior forces of united enemies ; that energy enabled her to re-establish her po- litical edifice which had been demolished by the usurper; and the same energy must, under our king, maintain that edifice against the usurpatory demands or attacks of an unjust defection. " The result is anticipated with confidence- The nation glories in her powerful means of defence, and in her sea and land forces, which are in arms to obtain equitable terms of the peace that is still so anxiously solicited. " The charges are heavy, but the circum- stances that render them necessarj' are unex- ampled; and there is no native of the country who would not cheerfully make the utmost sacrifices when the honour and independence of the nation are endangered. Much may be conceded for the sake of the peace of Europe, but self-preservation puis a limit to conces- sions when they have approached to the ut- most boundary. The Netherlands have ever made, willingly, great sacrifices fur the defence of their rights ; but never have they volunta- rily relinquished their national existence, and many times they have defended them with small numerical forces against far superior niiinhers. This same feeling now glows in every hf'art ; and still there is the God of our forefathers, who has preserved us in times of the most imminent peril. In unison with their king, the States-General put their confidence in God; and, strong as they are in their unani- mity of scntimi-nls, and in the justice of their cause, ihey coiifi.lenlly look forward to the re- ward of a noble and magnanimous perseve- rance." The revolutionary journals of England call this the obstinacy of the king of Holland. It is obstinacy. It is the same obstinacy as Le- onidas showed at Th'^rmopyIa», and Thnnisto- cles at Salamis, and the Roman senate after the battle of Cannjr, and the Swiss at Morgar- Icn, and Ihc Dutch at Haarlf^m ; the obstinacy which c immands the admiration of men tliniugh every succeeding age, and. even 298 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAy5>. amidst the injustice of this world, secures the biessinj? of Heaven. The Dutch may have Antwerp wrested from them; they may be compelled, from inability to resist, to surrender it to the Allies. All that will not alter the case ; it will not ultimately avert an European war; it will not the less prove fatal to the progress of freedom. The Allies, and above all, England, allow the key to the Scheldt, and the advanced post of France against Britain, to remain in the hands of the French, or, what is the same thing, their sub- sidiary ally, the Belgians. In every age the establishment of the French power in Flan- ders has led to an European war; that in which a revolutionary force is intrenched there, is not destined to form an exception. A war of opinion must ensue sooner or later, when the tricolour standard is brought down to the Scheldt, and the eagle of Prussia floats on the Meuse. When that event comes, as come it will, then will England, whether re- publican or monarchical, be compelled to exert her force to drive back the French to their old frontier. A second war must be undertaken to regain what a moment of weakness and infatu- ation has lost in the first. But what will be the result of such a war, provoked by the revolutionary ambition of France, and the tame subservience of England, on the interests of freedom ] If revolutionary ambition prevails, what chance has liberty of surviving amidst the tyranny of democratic power 1 If legitimate authority conquers, how can it exist amidst the Russian and Austrian bayonets ? When will real freedom again be restored as it existed in France under the mild sway of the Bourbons ; or as prosperous a period be regained for that distracted country, as that which elapsed from 1815 to ISSO? It is evident, that freedom must perish in the fierce contest between democratic and regal tyranny : it is hard to say, whether it has most to fear from the triumph'of the French or the Russian bayonets. To their other claims to the abhorrence of mankind, the liberals of England, like the Jacobins of France, will add that of being the assassins of real liberty throughout the world. _ It is sometimes advantageous to see the light m which the conduct of Great Britain is view- ed m foreign states. The following article is from the Manheim Gazette of the 8th inst.:— "The French ministry and the English Whio-s nave in vain asserted that they do not mean to rule by the principle of propagandism; these assurances are no guarantee, since propagand- ism subsists in the -tystem they have establish- ed, and cannot cease till that system is at an end. The delegates of the people, for in this light must be viewed all governments founded upon the principle of popular sovereigntj-, must of necessity seek their allies amono- other delegates of the same character; and to eudeavour to find friends among their neigh- bours, is to act as if they sought to revolution- ise such states as profess the monarchical principle. In this respect the influence of the firey ministry is more pernicious than that of the French ministry. The former having com- menced by revolutionizing England, and feel- ing itself closely pressed by a reaction at home, feels a greater desire to form alliances with other nations ; and consequently it is less solicitous about treaties and rights than France, who would unite herself more readily with monarchical states, if she were not restrained by the alliance with England. It is evident that England now occupies the place which was occupied by France after the revolution. Already the Grey ministry finds itself com. pelled to repair one extreme resolution by an- other ; and in a very short lime, repose, order, and peace, will become impossible. We re- peat, therefore, that it is the Grey ministry which threatens the peace of Europe." Such is the light in which our government is viewed by the continental powers, and such the alarm M-hich they feel at the threatened attack on Holland by the two revolutionary states ; and yet we are told by the partisans of administra- tion, that they are going to attack Antwerp" to preserve the peace of Europe." The ministerial journals have at length let out the real motive of our conduct ; the Times tells us that it is useless to blink the question, for if the French and English do not attack Antwerp together, France ivill attack it alone, and that this would infallibly bring on a gene- ral M'ar. That is to say, we have got into the company of a robber who is bent upon assail- ing a passenger upon the highway, and to pre- vent murder Ji-eyoin the robber in the attack. Did it never occur to our rulers, that there was a more effectual way to prevent the iniquity 1 and that is to get out of such had company, and defend the traveller. Would France ever venture to attack Antwerp if she were not supported by England? Would she ever do so if England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, were leagued together to prevent the march of revolutionary ambition] On whom then do the consequences of the aggression clearly rest 1 On the English government, who, against the interests and honour of England, join in the attack, when they hold the balance in their hands, and by a Avoid could prevent it. It is evident that it is this portentous alliance of France and England which really threatens the peace of Europe, and must ixltimately lead to a universal war. The Manheim Gazette is perfectly right; it is the Grey administration who head the revolutionar)' crusade. Holding the balance in our hands, we voluntarily throw our decisive weight into the scales of aggres- sion, and the other powers must unite to restore the beam. The years of prosperity will not endure for ever to England, any more than to any earthly thing. The evil days will come when the grandeur of an old and venerated name will sink amidst the storms of adversity; when her vast and unwieldy empire will be dismember- ed, and province after province fall away from her mighty dominions. W'hen these days come, as come they Avill, then will she feel what it was to have betrayed and insulted her allies in the plenitude of her power. When Ireland rises in open rebellion against her do- minion; when the West Indies are lost, and with them the right arm of her naval strength; when the armies of the continent crowd the KARAMSIN'S RUSSIA. 290 coasts of Flanders, and the navies of Europe are assembled in the Scheldt, to humble the mistress of the \vave.s, then will she feel how deepl}', how irreparabl}', her character has suffered from the infatuation of the last two years. In vain will she call on her once faith- ful friends in Holland or Portugal to uphold the cause of freedom ; in vain will she appeal to the world a2:ainst the violence with M-hich she is menaced ; her desertion of her allies in the hour of their adversity, her atrocious alli- ance with revolutionary violence, will rise up in judgment against her. When called on for aid, they will answer, did )'ou aid us in the day of trial ! when reminded of the alliance of an hundred and fifi)' years, the}' will point to the partition of 1832. England may expiate by suffering the disgrace of her present defec- tion ; efface it from the minds of men she never will. The conservative administration of England have had many eulogists, but they have haj none who have established their reputation so effectually as their successors : Mr. Pitt's glory might have been doubtful in the eyes of posterity, had he not been succeeded by Lord Grey. The contrast between the firmness, in- tegrity, and good faith of the one, and tha vacillation, defection, and weakness of the other, will leave an impression on the minds of men which will never be effaced. The mag nitude of the perils from which we were saved by the first, have been proved by the dangers we have incurred under the second ; the lustre of the intrepidity of the former, by the disgrace and humiliation of the latter. To the bright evening of England's glory, has succeeded the darkness of revolutionary night: may it be as brief as it has been gloomy, and be followed by the rise of the same luminary in a brighter morning, gilded by colours of undecaying beauty ! KARAMSIN^S RUSSIA/ Nevzh was there a more just observation, than that there is no end to authentic history. We shall take the most learned and enthusi- astic student of history in the country; one who has spent half his life in reading the an- nals of human events, and still we are confi- dent that much of what is about to be stated in this article will be new to him. Yet it relates to no inconsiderable state, and is to be found in no obscure writer. It relates to the history of Russia, the greatest and most powerful em- pire, if we except Great Britain, which exists upon the earth, and with which, — sometimes in alliance, — sometimes in jealousy, — we have been almost continually brought in contact during the last half century. It is to be fouiul in the history of Karamsin, the greatest his- torian of Russia, who has justly acquired an European reputation ; but whose great work, thnuL'h relating to so interesting a subject, has hitherto, in an unaccountable manner, been neglected in this country. Wc complain that there is nothing new in literature, — that old ideas are perpetually re- curring, and worn-out topics again dressed vip in a mw garb, — that sameness and imitation seem to be irrevocably stamped upon our literature, and the age of original thought, of fresh ideas, and creative genius, has passed away! Rely upon it, the fault is not in the nature of things, but in ourselves. The stock of original ideas, of new ihotights, of fresh images, is not worn out; on the contrary, it has hardly been seriously worked upon by all the previous efforts of mankind. We may say of it, as Newton did of his discoveries in physical science, that "all that he had done seemed like a boy playing on the sea-shore, finding sometimes a brighter pebble or a • Kar;iniriin. Ilisloiro do Hiissir, 1 1 void, rnr'm, l''in— 82S. I'oruigii mil] Colonial Review, No. VII. July, smoother shell than ordinary-, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before him." We complain of sameness of thought, of want of originality in topics, and yet we live in the midst of a boundless profusion of new facts and virgin images, for the first time brought forward by our extended intercourse with all parts of the world, ami the heart-stir- ring events of our political historj'. 'I'here never was a period in the annals of mankind, if we except that of the discover)' of America, in which new facts and novel images, and the materials for original thought, were brought with such profusion to the hand of genius ; and there never was one in which, in this country at least, so little use was ma', as well as the tendency of opinion in all the enlightened men in all countries who have been bred up under their influence, point to the conclusion that there is an original and indelible differ- ence in the character of the different races of men, and that each will best find its highest point of social advancement by institutions which have grown out of its ruling disposi- tions. This is but an exemplification of the profiiund observation long ago made by Mon- tesquieu, that no nation ever rose to durable greatness but by institutions in harmony with its spirit. Perhaps no national calamities have been so great, because none so lasting and irremediable, as those which have arisen from the attempt to transfer the institutions of our race and stage of political advancement to another family of men and another era of social progress. Recollecting what great things the Slavonic race has done both in fi>rmer and present times, it is curious to see the character which Karainsin gives of them in the fiist vi> lume of his great work: — "Like all other people the Slavonians, at the commencement of their political exist- ence, were ignorant of the advantages of a re gular government; they would neither tolerate masters nor slaves among them, holding the fruit of blessings to consist in the enjoyment of unlioiinded freedom. The father of a iannily commanded his children, the husband his wife, the master his household, the brother his sis- ters; every one constructed his hut in a place apart from the rest, in order that he might iivi 304 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. more at ease, and according to his own incli- nations. A wood, a stream, a field, constituted the dominion of a Slavonian; and no unarmed person ventured to violate the sanctity of his domain— each family formed a little independ- ent republic ; and the ancient customs, com- mon to the whole nation, served them instead of laws. On important occasions the different tribes assembled to deliberate on their common concerns ; they consulted the old men, those living repositories of ancient usages, and they evinced the utmost deference to their advice. The same system was adopted when they re- quired to elect a chief for one of their warlike expeditions ; but such was their excessive love of freedom, and repugnance towards any kind of constraint, that they imposed various limi- tations on the authority of their chiefs, whom they often disobeyed, even in the heat of bat- tle : after having terminated their expedition, every one returned to his home, and resumed the command of his children and household. " That savage simplicity — that rudeness of manners could not long endure. The pillage of the empire of the east, the centre of luxury and riches, made the Slavonians acquainted with new pleasures and hitherto unfelt wants. These wants, by putting an end to their soli- taiy independence, drew closer the bonds of social dependence: they daily felt more strongly the necessity of mutual support ; they placed their homes nearer each other; they began to build towns. Others, who had seen in foreign countries magnificent cities and flourishing villages, lost all taste for the obscurity of the forests, once endeared to their hearts by the love of independence ; they passed into the provinces of Greece ; they consented to range themselves under the rule of the emperor. The fate of war placed, for a brief season, a large part of the Gei-man Sla- vonians under the government of Charlemagne and his successors ; but an unconquerable love of freedom was ever the basis of their character. On the first favourable opportunity they threw off the yoke, and avenged them- selves cruelly on their rulers for their transient subjection: they were never finally reduced to order but by the influences of the Christian religion." — Vol. i. p. 68, 69. How strongly does this picture of the Sla- vonic race, a thousand years ago, recall the traces of the Poles of the present time ! The same love of solitary and isolated freedom, — the same passion for independence, — the same fretting under the restraints of civilization and the curb of authority,— the source at once of their strength and their weakness— their glo- ries and their ruin ! If it be true, as Shakspeare has told us, that the ruling passion is strong in death ; no slight interest will attach to Karamsin's graphic pic- ture of the character evinced in the supreme hour by the three races which have so long contended for the mastery of the east, viz., the Tartars, the Russians or Slavonians, and the Turks. " Cannons for a long time were not regarded py the Russians as a necessary part of the implements of war. Invented as they con- ceived by the Italian artists for the defence of fortresses, ihey allowed them to remain mo. tionless on their carriages on the ramparts cf the Kremlin. In the moment of combat the Russians trusted more to their number than to the skill of their manceuvres ; they endea- voured in general to attack the enemy in rear, and surround him. Like all Asiatic nations, they looked rather to their movements at a distance than in close fight ; but when they did charge, their attacks were impetuous and ter- rible, but of short duration. 'In their vehe- ment shock,' says Herberstain, ' they seemed to say to their enemy, — Fly, or we will fly c?Lr- selves !' In war as in pacific life, the pecf le of different races differ to an astonishing de gree from each other. Thrown down from his horse, disarmed, and covered with blood, the Tartar never thinks of surrender: he shakes his arms, repels the enemy with his foot, and with dying fury bites him. No sooner is the Turk sensible he is overthrown, than be throws aside his scimitar, and implores the gene- rosity of his conqueror. Pursue a Russian, he "makes no attempt to defend himself in his flight, but never does he ask for quarter. Is he pierced by lances or swords, he is silent, and dies."— Vol vii. p. 252. These are the men of whom Frederick the Great said, you might kill them where they stood, but never make them fly. — "They were motionless, fell, and died !" "Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave." A devout sense of religion, a Avarm and con- stant sense of Divine superintendence, has in every age, from the days of Rurick to those of Alexander, formed the ruling principle and grand characteristic of the Russians, and has of all nations which have ever risen to durable greatness. Karamsin tells us that from the remotest period this has been the unvarying characteristic of the Slavonic race : — " In the 6th century, the Slavonians adored the Creator of Thunder, — the God of the uni- A^erse. The majestic spectacle of storms, — at the moment when an invisible hand appears from the height of the burning heavens to dart its lightnings upon the earth, — must ever make a deep impression alike on civilized and savage man. The Slavonians and Antes, as Procopius observes, did not believe in des- tiny; but, according to them, all events depend- ed on the icill of a Muler of the world. On the field of battle, in the midst of perils, in sick- ness, in calamity, they sought to bind the Su- preme Being, — by vows, by the sacrifice of bulls and goats, to appease his wrath. On the same principle, they adored the rivers and mountains, whom they peopled with nymphs and genii, by whose aid they sought to pene- trate the depths of futurity. In later times, the Slavonians had abundance of idols ; per- suaded that true wisdom consisted in knowing the name and qualities of each god, in order to be able to propitiate his favour. They were true polytheists, considering their statues not as images of the gods, but as inspired by their spirit, and wielding their power. " Nevertheless, in the midst of these absurd superstitions, the Slavonians had an idea of a supreme and all-powerful Being, to whom the KARAMSIN'S RUSSIA. 305 Immensity of the heavens, dazzling ^vith thou- sands of stars, formed a worthy temple ; but who was occupied only with celestial objects, while he had intrusted to subaltern deities, or to his children, the government of tlic world. They called him ' Bilibos,' or ' the White God,' while the spirit of evil was named 'Tcherm- bog,' or ' the Black God.' They sought to ap- pease the lash by sacrifices : he was represented under the image of a lion ; and to his malig- nant influences they ascribed all their misfor- tunes and miseries of life. The beneficent Deity they considered too elevated to be swayed by prayers, or approached by mortals: it was the inferior executors of his will who alone were to be propitiated." — Vol. i. p. 99 — 102. It has been already mentioned, that the Rus- sian empire was founded by Rurick, in 862. And it is very remarkable that supreme power was obtained by that great warrior, not by the sword of conquest, but by the voluntary and unanimous will of the people. "In Russia," says Karamsin, "sovereign power was established with the unanimous consent of the inhabitants; and the Slavonic tribes concurred in forming an empire which has for it? limits now the Danube, America, Sweden and China. The origin of the govern- ment was as follows : — the Slavonians of No- vogorod and the central districts around Mos- cow, sent an embassy to the Varegue-Russians, who were established on the other side of the Baltic, with these words — 'Our country is gieat and fertile, but under the rule of disor der; come and take it.' Three brothers named RcnicK,Sincori, and Trouver, illustrious alike by their birth and their great actions, escorted by a numerous bodj' of Siavoiiuiiis, accepted the perilous invitation, and fixed their abode, and began to assume the government in Rus- sia, — Rurick at Novogorod, Sincori at Bich Ozero, near the Fins, and Trouver at Izborsk. Within less than two years, Sincori ^and Trouver both died, and Rurick obtained the government of the whole provinces which had invited them over; and which embraced all the central provinces of Russia; and the feudal system was established over their whole extent."— Vol. i. p. 113. Ml. The T' was the great arti-ry of this infant ■ n ; at once their wal<"ry lii;;h road, and nf) inconsidcral)le source of subsist- ence. It was on its bosom that the innumera- ble canoes were launched, which, fillrd with yellow-li ' id fi-rociouH warrir>rs, descend- ed to I . r A/oph, peneirateil into the Black !Sea, forced the passage of the Bospho- nis, ami often besieged Constantinople itself. In less than a century after its first origin, the Russian '"mpirc was already a prepond ; and secure behind its formitlable ram parts, beheld with indilferenee the villag«s around in flames, their churches pillaged and destroj-ed, and the wretched inhabitants driven 806 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS by the swords and lances of the Russians into the capital. Nestor, the Russian annalist, has left the most frightful account of the cruel bar- barities committed on these defenceless in- habitants by the victorious warriors, who put their prisoners to death by the crudest tortures, and hurled the living promiscuously with the dead into the sea. Meanwhile the Greeks, albeit numerous and admirably armed, re- mained shut up in Constantinople ; but soon the Russian standards approached the walls, and they began to tremble behind their im- pregnable ramparts. Oleg drew up his boats on the shore, and putting them, as at the cata- racts of the Dnieper, on the shoulders of his men, reached the harbour on the land side ; and after launching them on its upper extremi- ty, appeared with spreading sails, as Mahomet li. afterwards did, ready to land his troops behind the chain, and escalade the walls, on the side where they were weakest. Terrified at this audacious enterprise, the Emperor Leon hastened to sue for peace, offering to send provisions and equipments for the fleet, and to pay an annual tribute ; and a treaty was at length concluded, on the condition that each Russian in the armament should receive twelve grionas, and heavy contributions should be levied on the empire for the towns of Kielf, Tchernigof, Polteck, Lubetch, and other de- pendencies of Russia." — Vol. i. p. 162 — 165. When the imperial city in the commence- ment of the 10th century was assailed by such formidable bodies of these northern invaders, and its emperors Avere so little in a condition to resist the attack, it is not surprising that it should have been prophesied in that city 900 years ago, that in its last days Constantinople should be taken by the Russians. The sur- prising thing rather is, that in consequence of the lateral irruption of the Turks, and the sub- sequent jealousies of other European powers, this consummation should have been so long delayed as it actually has. Passing by the two centuries and a half of weakness, civil warfare, and decline, which followed the disastrous system of apanages, which are uninteresting to general history, we hasten to lay before our readers a specimen of the description Karamsin has given of the terrible effects produced by the Tartar inva- sions, which commenced in 1223. The de- vastation of that flourishing part of Asia which formerly bore the name of Bactriana and Sogdiana, is thus described: — " Bokhara in vain attempted a defence against Genghis Khan. The elders of the town came out to leave the keys of the city at the feet of the conqueror, but to no purpose. Genghis Khan appeared on horseback, and entered the principal mosque ; no sooner did he see the Alcoran there, than he seized it, and threw it with fury to the ground. That capital ■was reduced to ashes. Samarcand, fortified with care, contained 100,000 soldiers, and a great number of elephants, which constituted at that period the principal strength of the Asiatic armies. Distrusting even these power- ful means of defence, the inhabitants threw themselves on the mercy of the conqueror, but oiet with i, fate as cruel as if they had stood an assault. Thirty thousand were put to de&th in cold blood, a like number condemned to perpetual slavery, and a contribution of 200,000 pieces of gold levied on the town. Khiva Tirmel, and Balkh, in the last of which were 1200 mosques, and 200 baths for stranger* alone, experienced the same fate. During two or three years the ferocious wars of Genghis Khan ravaged to such a degree the wide couk tries stretching from the sea of Aral to the Indus, that during the six centuries which have since elapsed, they have never recovered their former flourishing condition." — Vol. iii. p. 281, 282. At length this terrible tempest approached the Moscovite plains. The first great battle between the Moguls and the Russians took place in 1226. " Encouraged by a trifling success they had gained over the advanced guard of the enemy, the Russians drew up their army on the left bank of the Kalka, and calmly awaited the ap- proach of the enemy. Soon the innumerable squadrons of the Tartars appeared, and the in- trepid Daniel, overflowing with courage, bore down upon the vanguard, broke it, and had well-nigh gained a glorious victory ; but the cowardl}' Polontsks could not stand the shock of the Moguls, and speedily turned their backs and fled. In the delirium of terror, they pre- cipitated themselves on the Russians, penetra- ted their ranks, and carried the most frightful disorder into their camp, where the princes of KiefT and Tchernigof had made no prepara- tions for battle, as Moteslaf, their general, who commanded the leading column, wishing to engross the whole honours of victory, had given them no warning of the approaching fight. Once broken, the Russians made but a feeble resistance; even the young Daniel was swept away by the torrent, and it was not till his horse stopped on the brink of a stream which it could not pass, that he felt a deep wound which he had received in the com- mencement of the action. The Tartars, in continuing the pursuit to the banks of the Dnieper, made a prodigious slaughter of the flying Muscovites; among others, six princes and seventy nobles were put to death. Never did Russia experience a more stunning ca- lamity. A superb army, numerous, valiant, animated with the highest spii'it, almost en- tirely disappeared; hardly a tenth part of its numbers escaped. The base Polontsks, our pretended allies, joined in the massacre of the Russians, when victory had decidedly declared in favour of the Moguls. In the consternation which followed, the few Russian generals who survived threw themselves into the Dnieper, and destroyed all the boats on the river, to prevent the enemy from following after them. All but Moteslaf Romanevich, of KiefT, passed over: but that chief, who was left in a fortified camp on the summit of a hill, disdained to abandon his post, and actually awaited the whole fury of the Mogul onset. During three days, at the head of his heroic band, he repulsed all their efforts, and at length wearied with a resistance which they saw no means of surmounting, the Mogul leaders pro posed to allow him to retire with his troops KARAMSIN'S RUSSIA. 307 provided a ransom was agreed to, which ca- pitulation was agreed to and sworn on both sides. No sooner, however, had the perfidious Tartars by this device wiled the Russians out of their stronghold, than they fell upon them and massacred the whole, and concluded their triumph, by making a horrid feast of their bloody remains." — Vol. iii. p. 289 — 291. The iram°diate subjugation of Russia seemed presaged by this dreadful defeat; but the dan- ger at the moment was averted by orders from Genghis Khan, who withdrew his forces to the south for an expedition against Persia. But the breathing-time was not of long duration. Before many years had elapsed, the Tartars returned flushed with fresh conquest under the redoubtable Bati. That terrible conqueror, the scourge of Russia, took and burnt Moscow, where the prince, who commanded, and the whole of the inhabitants, were put to the sword, without distinction of age or sex. City after city, province after province, fell before the dreadful invaders, who seemed as irresisti- ble as they were savage and pitiless. Broken down into numerous little f//>f/»(jfi:e.'!, or separate principalities, the once powerful Russian em- pire was incapable of making any eflectual resistance. Yet were examples not wanting of the most heroic and touching devotion, worthy to be placed beside the names of Asta- pa and Numantium. " Bati sent a part of his troops against Souz- del, which made no resistance. As soon as they had entered it, the Tartars, according to their usual custom, put to death the whole population, with the exception of the 3'oung monks at Nuni, who were reserved fnr sla- very. On the Gth of February, 1238, the in- habitants of Vladimir beheld the dark squad- rons of the Tartars, like a black torrent, sur- round their walls; and soon the preparation of scaling ladders and palisades indicated an immediate assault. Unable to resist this in- numerable army, and yet sensible that it was in vain, as the Moguls would massacre, or sell them all for slaves, the boyards, and nobles, inspired with a sublime spirit, resolved tn die Rse hToic citizens had bnl adieu to the world and to life; but at the moment of quitting it, ihey did not pray the less fervently for the existence of Iheir beloved Russia. On the 7th of Februarv, bein? the Sunday of the Carnival, the assault comineneed. — the Tartars broke into the city by the Golden Gate, by that of Brass and that of Saint Irene. Vsevold and Motcslaf retired with their guards into the (dd town, while Agatha, the wife of (»eonjes, the peneral-in- chief, his daughters, nieces, jjrand-ilaujjhters, and a crowd of citizens of the highest rank, flocked to the cathedral, where they were soon surrounded by the ferocious Moguls, who set fire to the building. No sooner did he per- ceive the flames, than the bishop exclaimed, 'Oh, Lord! stretch out your invisible arms, and receive your servants in peace,' and gave his benediction to all around him. In fervent devotion they fell on their faces, awaiting death, which speedily overtook them. Some ivere suffocated by the volumes of smoke which rushed in on all sides, others perished in the flames or sank beneath the sword of the Tar- tars. The blood-thirstiness of the Moguls could not await the advance of the conflagra- tion ; with hatchets they burst open the gates and rushed in, eager for the treasures which they thought were hid in the interior. The cruel warriors of Bati made scarce any prisoners : all perished by the sword or the flames. The Prince Vsevold and Moteslaf, finding them- selves unable to repel the enemy, strove to cut their way through their dense battalions, and both perished in the attempt." — Vol. iii. p. 314, 345. Another instance of sublime devotion wiL close our extracts from the scenes of car- nage : — "After the destruction of Vladimir, the nu mcrous Tartar bands advanced towards Ko- zilsk, in the government of Kalonpra. Vassili commanded in that town, and with his guards and his people deliberated on the part which they should adopt. 'Our prince is still young, exclaimed those faithful Russians: 'It is our duly to (lie for him, in order to leave a glorious name, and to find beyond the tomb the crown of immortality.' All united in this generous determination, resolving at the same time to retard the enemy as much as possible by the most heroic resistance. During more than a month the Tartars besieged the fortress with- out being able to make any sensible prot^ress in its reduction. At length a part of the walls, having fallen down, under their strokes, the Tartars cscaladed the ramparts ; but at their summit, they were met by a determined band of Russians, who with knives and swords, dis- puted every inch of groiiiul. ami slew 4,000 Tartars before they sank under the innumer- able multitude of their enemies. Not one of that heroic band survived; the whole inhabit- ants, men, women, and children, were put to death, and Bati, astonished at so vehement a resistance, called the town, 'the wicked city;' a glorious appellation when cominsr from a Tartar chief, Vassili perished, literally drowned in the blootl of his followers." — Vol. iii. p, .'JJ9. .'»,')0. And It is at the time when these heroic deeds arc for the first lime brought under the notice of the people of this country, that we arc told that every thing is worn out, and that nothing new or interesting is to be found in human aflairs. But all these efl"orts, how heroic soever, could not avert the stroke of fate. Russia was subdued — less by the superior .skill or valour, than the enormous numbers of the rnemv, who at lenijih poured into the country 100,000 strong. For above two hundred and (iliy years they were tributary to the Tartars, ami the grand princes of Russia were confirmed in their government by the Great Khan. The first great effort to shake oif th.it odious yoke, was made in 1378, when Dmitri cc llectcd the stiU 308 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. scattered forces of the apanages to make head against the common enemy. The two armies, each 150,000 strong, met at Koulikoff, on the 7th September, 1378, on which day, four him- dredand thirty-four years afterwards. Napoleon and Kutasoff commenced the dreadful strug- gle at Borodino. " On the 6th September, the army approached the Don, and the princes and boyards delib- erated whether they should retire across the river, so as to place it between them and the enemy, or await them where they stood, in order to cut off all retreat from the cowardly, and compel them to conquer or die. Dmitri then ascended a mound, from which he could survey his vast army. ' The hour of God,' said he, 'has sounded.' In truth no one could contemplate that prodigious multitude of men and horses; those innumerable battalions ranged in the finest order; the thousands of banners, and tens of thousands of arms glitter- ing in the sun, and hear the cry repeated by a hundred and fifty thousand voices, — 'Great God, give us the victory over our enemies,' without having some confidence in the result. Such was the emotion of the prince, that his eyes filled with tears; and dismounting, he knelt down, and stretching out his arm to the black standard, on which was represented our Saviour's figure, he prayed fervently for the salvation of Russia. — Then mounting his horse, he said to those around, — 'My well-beloved brothers and companions in arms, it is by your exploits this day, that you will live in the memory of man, or obtain the crown of immortality.' "Soon the Tartar squadrons were seen slowly advancing, and ere long they covered the whole country to the eastward, as far as the eye could reach. Great as was the host of the Russians, they were outnumbered con- siderably by the Moguls. His generals be- sought Dmitri to retire, alleging the duty of a commander-in-chief to direct the movements, not hazard his person like a private soldier; \ but he replied, 'No, you will suifer wherever you are : if I live, follow me, if I die avenge me.' Shortly after the battle commenced, and was the most desperate ever fought between the Russians and the Tartars. Over an ex- tent of ten wersts, (seven miles,) the earth was stamed with the blood of the Christians and Infidels. In some quarters the Russians broke the Moguls; in others they yielded to their redoubtable antagonists. In the centre some young battalions gave way, and spread the cry that all was lost: the enemy rushed in at the opening this aflbrded, and forced their way nearly to the standard of the Grand Prince, which was only preserved by the de- voted heroism of his guard. Meanwhile Prince Vladimir Andreiwitch, who was placed with a chosen body of troops in ambuscade, was furious at being the passive spectator of so desperate a conflict in which he was not permitted to bear a part. At length, at eight at night, the Prince of Volhynia, who observed with an experienced eye the movements of the two armies, exclaimed, ' My friends, our time nas come !' and let the whole loose upon the enemy, new somewhat disordered by success. Instantly they emerged from the forest which had concealed them from the enemy, and fell with the utmost fury on the Moguls. The effect of this unforeseen attack was decisive. Astonished at the vehement onset, by troops fresh and in the best order, the Tartars fled, and their chief, Mamia, who, from an elevated spot beheld the rout of his host, exclaimed, ' The God of the Christian is powerful !' and joined in the general flight. The Russians pursued the Moguls to the Metcha, in endea* vouring to cross which vast numbers were slain or drowned, and the camp, with an im mense booty, fell into the hands of the vic- tors."— Vol. V. pp. 79—82. This great victory, however, did not decide the contest, and nearly a hundred years elapsed before the independence of Russia i from the Tartars was finally established. Not long after this triumph, as after Boradino, Moscow was taken and burnt by the Moguls ; the account of which must, for the present, close our extracts. " No sooner were the walls of Moscow es- caladed by the Tartars, than the whole inha- bitants, men, women, and children, became the prey of the cruel conquerors. Knowing that great numbers had taken refuge in the stone churches, which M^ould not burn, they cut down the gates with hatchets, and found immense treasures, brought into these asy- lums from the adjoining country. Satiated with carnage and spoil, the Tartars next set fire to the town, and drove a weeping crowd of captives, whom they had selected for slaves, from the massacre into the fields around. 'What terms,' say the contemporary annalists, ' can paint the deplorable state in which Mos- cow was then leftl That populous capital, resplendent with riches and glory, was de- stroyed in a single day!' Nothing remained but a mass of ruins and ashes ; the earth covered with burning remains and drenched with blood, corpses half burnt, and churches wrapt in flames. The awful silence was interrupted only by the groans of the unhappy wretches, who, crushed beneath the falling houses, called aloud for some one to put a period to their sufferings." — Vol. v. p. 101. Such was Russia at its lowest point of de- pression in 1378. The steps by which it regained its independence and became again great and powerful, wall furnish abundant subject for another article on Karamsin's Mo" dern History. We know not what impression these ex tracts may have made on our readers, but or ourselves they have produced one of the mosJ profound description. Nothing can be so interesting as to trace the infancy and pro- gressive groAvth of a great nation as of a great individual. In both we can discover thS slow and gradual training of the mind to it? ultimate destiny, and the salutary influence of adversity upon both in strengthening the character, and calling forth the energies. It is by the slowest possible degrees that nations are trained to the heroic character, the patri otic spirit, the sustained effort, which is ne* cessary to durable elevation. Extraordinary but fleeting enthusiasm, the genius of a sin EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 309 gie man, the conquests of a single nation, ma)- often elevate a power like that of Alexander, in ancient, or Napoleon in modern times, to the very hi2;hest pitch of worldly greatness. But no reliance can be'placed on the stability of such empires; they invariably sink as fast as they had risen, and leave behind them no- thing but a brilliant, and, generally, awful impression on the minds of succeeding ages. If we would seek for the only sure foundations of lasting greatness, we shall find them in the persevering energy of national character; in the industry with which wealth has been ac- cumulated, and the fortitude with which suf- fering has been endured through a long course of ages ; and, above all, in the steady and con- tinued influence of strong religious impres- sions, which, by influencing men in every important crisis by a sense of duty, has ren- dered them superior to all the storms of for- tune. And the influence of these principles is nowhere more clearly to be traced than in the steady progress and present exalted position cf the Russian empire. Of Karamsin's merits as an author, a con- ception may be formed from the extracts we have already given. We must not expect in the historian of a despotic empire, even when recording the most distant events, the just dis- crimination, the enlightened views, the fearless opinions, which arise, or can be hazarded only in a free countr}'. The philosophy of history is the slow growth of the opinions of all difl^er- ent classes of men, each directed by their ablest leaders, acting and receding upon eacli other through a long course of ages. It was almost wholly unknown to the ancient Greeks; it Avas first struck out, at a period when the recollections of past freedom contrasted with the realities of present servitude, by the mighty genius of Tacitus, and the sagacity of Machiavelli, the depth of Bacon, the philoso- phy of Hume, the glance of Robertson, and the wisdom of Guizot, have been necessary to bring the science even to the degree of mata- rity which it has as yet attained. But in brilliancy of description, animation of style, and fervour of eloquence, Karamsin is not ex- ceeded by any historian in modern times. The pictures he has given of the successive changes in Russian manners, institutions, and government, though hardly so frequent as could have been wished, prove that he has in him the spirit of philosophy; while in the animation of his descriptions of every impor- tant event, is to be seen the clearest indication that he is gifted with the eye of poetic genius. Russia may well be proud of such a work, and it is disgraceful to the literature of this country that no English translation of it has yet appeared. We must, in conclusion, add, that the elevated sentiments with which it abounds, as well as the spirit of manly piety and fervent patriotism in which it is con- ceived, diminish our surprise at the continued progress of an empire which was capable of producing such a writer. ErrECTS OF THE ERE^sCII EEYOLUTIOX OF 1830.* Evr.n since the late French Revolution broke out, and at a time when it carried with it the wishes, and deluded the judgment, of a large and respectable portion of the British public, we have, never ceased to combat the then prc- vailin? opinion on the subject. Wc ass'Tled from the very outset that it was calculated to do incredible mischief to the cause of real fr'"f!om ; that it would throw back for a very I _' period the march of tranquil liberty; that It rist.>r<-d at once the rule of the strongest; and, bn-aking down the supr-riority of intellect and knowledge by the mere force of numbers, would inevitably and rapidly lead, through a bitter period of suffering, to the despotism of the sword. We founded our opinion upon the obvious fnrls, that the Revolution was elTi-cled by the populace of Paris, by the treachery of the army, and the force of the barricades, without any appeal to the judgment or wishes of the remaimlfr of France; that a constitution was lrnm<^(i, a king chosen, and a government esta- blished at the Hotel dc Villc, by a junto of en- thusiastic heads, without either deliberation. • Sri/.p >Ioi interests of society in the fabric of go- vernment, and the prevention of the encroach- ments of e.nch class by the influence of the others; and such mutual balancing was im possible in a country where the whole middling ranks were destroyed, and nothincr remained but tumultuous masses of ntankind on the one hand, and an indiqnnnt soldiery on the other. We maintained that the convulsion at Paris was a deplorable catastrophe for the cause of freedom in all other countries; that by preci pitatiiig the democratic party every where intf revolutionary measures or revolutionary et SIO ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. cesses, it would inevitably rouse the conserva- tive interests to defend themselves ; that in the struggle, real liberty would be equally endan- gered by the fury of its insane friends and the hostility of its aroused enemies ; and that the tranquil spread of freedom, which had been so conspicuous since the fall of Napoleon, would be exchanged for the rude conflicts of military power with popular ambition. Few, we believe, comparatively speaking, of our readers, fully went along with these views when they were first brought forward ; but how completely have subsequent events demonstrated their justice; and how entirely has the public mind in both countries changed as to the character of this convulsion since it took place ! Freedom has been unknown in France since the days of the Barricades ; be- tween the dread of popular excess on the one hand, and the force of military power on the other, the independence of the citizens has been completely overthrown; Paris has been periodically the scene of confusion, riot, and anarcnv ; the revolt of Lyons has only been extinguished by Marshal Soult at the head of ias large an army as fought the Duke of Wel- lington at Toulouse, and at as great an expense of human life as the revolt of the Barricades ; the army, increased from 200,000 to 600,000 men, has been found barely adequate to the maintenance of the public tranquillity; 40,000 men, incessantly stationed round the capital, have, almost every month, answered the cries of the people for bread by charges of caval- ry, and all the severity of military execution; the annual expenditure has increased from 40,000,000/. to 60,000,000/. ; fifty millions ster- ling of debt has been incurred in eighteen months; notwithstanding a great increase of taxation, the revenue has declined a fourth in its amount, with the universal suffering of the people; and a pestilential disorder following as usual in the train of human violence and misery, has fastened with unerring certainty on the wasted scene of political agitation, and swept off twice as many men in a few weeks in Paris alone, as fell under the Russian can- non on the field of Borodino. Externally, have the effects of the three glo- rious days been less deplorable ■? Let Poland answer; let Belgium answer; let the British empire answer. Who precipitated a gallant nation on a gigantic foe ; and roused their hot blood by the promises of sympathy and sup- port, and stirred up by their emissaries the re- volutionary spirit in the walls of Warsaw] Who is answerable to God and man for having occasioned its fatal revolt, and buoyed its chiefs up with hopes of assistance, and stimu- lated them to refuse all offers of accommoda- tion, and delivered them up, unaided, unbe- friended, to an infuriated conqueror? The revolutionary leaders; the revolutionary press of France and England ; the government of Louis Philippe, and the reforming ministers of England ; those, who, knowing that they could render them no assistance, allowed their journals, uncontradicted, to stimulate them to resistance, and delude them to the last with the hopes of foreign intervention. Who is ausverable to God and man for the Belgian revolt? Who has spread famine and desola tion through its beautiful provinces, and withered its industry with a blast worse than the simoom of the desert ; and soAvn on the theatre of British glol^ those poisoned teeth, which must spring up in armed battalions, and again in the end involve Europe in the whirl- wind of war? The revolutionary leaders ; the revolutionary press of France and England; the government of Louis Philippe, and the re- forming ministers of this country; those who betrayed the interests of their country in the pursuit of democratic support; who dismem- bered the dominions of a faithful ally, and drove him back at the cannon mouth, when on the point of regaining his own capital ; who surrendered the barrier of Marlborough and Wellington, and threw open the gates of Eu- rope to republican ambition after they had been closed by British heroism. Who are answer- able to God and man for the present distracted state of the British empire? Who have sus- pended its industry, and shaken its credit, and withered its resources ? Who have spread bitterness and distrust through its immense population, and fill,ed its poor with expectations that can never be realized, and its rich with terrors that can never be allayed ? Who have thrown the torch of discord into the bosom of an united people ; and habituated the lower orders to license, and inflated them with arro- gance, and subjugated thought and wisdom by the force of numbers, and arrayed against the concentrated education and wealth of the na- tion the masses of its ignorant and deluded inhabitants? The reforming ministers; the revolutionary press of England; those who ascended to power amidst the transports of the Barricades ; who incessantly agitated the peo- ple to uphold their falling administration, and have incurred the lasting execration of man- kind, by striving to array the numbers of the nation against its intelligence, and subjugate the powers of the understanding by the fury of the passions. To demonstrate that these statements are not j overcharged as to the present condition of ■ France, and the practical consequence of the Revolution of the Barricades, we subjoin the following extract from an able and independ- j ent reforming journal. "If a government is to be judged of by the condition of the people, as a tree by its fruits, . the present government of France must be deemed to be extremely deficient in those qua- lities of statesmanship which are calculated to inspire public confidence and make a people ; happy — for public discontent, misery, commotion, j a7id bloodshed, have been the melancholy cha- j racteri sties of its sway. If the ministry of Louis Philippe were positively devoted to the interests of the ex-royal family, they could not take more effective steps than they have hitherto done to make the vices of the family be for- gotten, and to reinforce the ranks of the party which labours incessantly for their recall. "With short intervals of repose, Paris has been a scene of emcuics and disturbances which would disgrace a semi-civilized country, and to this sort of intermittent turbulence it hat been doomed ever since Louis Philippe asrtnded tha EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. Sll throne, but mors especially since Casimir Perier was intrusted with the reins of responsible go- vernment. It is a melancholy fact that, under the revolutionized government of France, more blood has been shed in conflicts between the people and the military, than during the fifteen years of the Restoration, if we except the three days of resistance to the ordinances in Paris, which ended in the dethronement of Charles the Tenth. "Yet we do nc' know if we ought to except the carnage cf those three days, for we recol- lect having seen a communication from Lyons, soon after the commotions in that city, in which it was stated that a greater number of persons, both citizens and soldiers, fell in the conflict between the workmen and the military, than were slain during the memorable three days of Paris. Let us add to this the slaughter at Grenoble, where the people were again victorious, and the sabrings and shootings which have taken place in minor conflicts in several towns and departments, and it will be found that the present government maintains its power at a greater cost of French blood than that which it has superseded." — Morning Heralfl. We have long and anxiously looked for some publication from a man of character and lite- rary celebrity of the liberal party in France, which might throw the same light on the con- sequences of its late revolution as the work of M. Dumont has done on the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly. Such a work is now before us, from the able and eloquent pen of M. Salvandy, to whose striking history of Po- land we have in a recent number requested the attention of our readers. He has always been a liberal, opposed in the Chamber of De- puties all the arbitrary acts of the late govern- ment, and is a decided defender of the Revolu- tion of July. From such a character the tes- timony borne to its practical effects is of the highest value. "The Uesloration," says he, "bore in its bo- som an enemy, from whose attacks France required incessant protection. That enemy was the counter revolutionary spirit; in other words, the passion to deduce without reserve all its conscquenrcs from the principle of Icffi- timacy ; ihc desire to nvcrtiirn, for the sake of the ancient interests, the poliiical system esta- blished by the Revolution, and consecrated by the Charier and a thousand oaths. It was the cancer which mnsumrd it; the danger was pointed out for fifteen years, and at length it devoured it. "The Revolution of July also bore in its entrails another curse : this was the revolu- tionary/pirit, evoked fcom the bloody chaos of our first Revolution, by the sound of tin- rapid victory of the people over the royalty. That fatal spirit has weighed upon the desti- nies of France, since the Revolution of 18.30. like its evil petiius. I write to illustrate its effects; arnl I (Vol I should ill nccomplish my task if I did riot at the same time combat its doctrines. " The counter-revolution was no ways for- tnidable, but in consequence of the inevitable •nderstanding which existed between its sup- porters and the crown, who, although it long refused them its arms, often lent them its shield. The revolutionary spirit has also a powerful ally, which communicates to it force from its inherent energy. This ally is the de- mocracij which now reigns as a despot over France ; that is, without moderation, without wisdom, without perceiving that it reigns only for the behoof of the spirit of disorder — that terrible ally which causes it to increase its own power, and will terminate by destroying it. It is time to speak to the one and the other a firm lan- guage ; to recall to both principles as old as the world, which have never yet been violated with impunity by nations, and which succeS' sivcly disappear from the midst of us, stifled under the instinct of gross desires, rash pas- sions, pusillanimous concessions, and subver- sive laws. Matters are come to such a point, that no small courage is now required to un- fold these sacred principles ; and yet all the objects of the social union, the bare progress of nations, the dignity of the human race, the cause of freedom itself, is at stake. That liberty is to be seen engraven at the gate of all our cities, emblazoned on all our monuments, floating on all our standards ; but, alas ! it will float there in vain if the air which we breathe is charged with anarchy, as with a mortal contagion, and if that scourge marks dailx with its black mark some of our maxims, of our laws, of our powers, while it is inces- santlv advancing to the destruction of society itself" " What power required the sacrifice of the peerage 1 Let the minister answer it, he said it again and again with candour and courage. // is to }iopii!(ir prejudice, dciiiorralif }ntssion, the intoxication of dcnia'^of^ues, the Hind hatred of every species of superiority, that this immense sacrifice has been offered. I do not fear to assert, that a na- tion which has enforced such a sacrifice, on such altars ; a nation which could demand or consent to such a sacrifice, has decUirod itself in the face of the world ignorant of freedom, and perhaps incapable of enjoying it. "That was the great battle of our revolu- tionary parly. It has gained it. It is no longer by our institutions that we can be defended from its enterprises and its folly. The good sense of the public is now our last safeguard. Dut let us not deceive ourselves. Should the public spirit become deranged, we are undone. It dcpinds in future on a breath of opinion, whither niiarehy should not rise triumphant in the midst of the powers of government. Mistress of the ministry by the elections, it would speedily become so of the Upper House, by the new rreation* which it would furct upon Iht crown. The Upper House will run the risk, at every quin hli-rly." — Pp. 20— 3G. Thoro is hardly a sentence in this long quo- tation, that is not precisely applicable to this country, and the revolutionary party so vehe- mently at wiifk amongst ourselves. How strik • are his observations on the >'. :,!• hf-rediiary peerage, and ihe prrvi w this last bulwark of order >" *be t .' s! In France, the Citizen King. uTL'ril on by the movement party, rrt- aled Ihii--; }'■•'. •' > ,, " I by I'^^'r ai.! ; ;, . , . anil Ihri'he ilic last stip- i II). In Great Dritain, the same course was urged by an insane popu- lace, and a reckless administration, on the crown ; and an rfl'orl, noble indeed, but, it is fo be feared, ■ was made by the crown to resist the . Thr " Masses" of man- kind, those immense bodies whom it is the policy of the revolutionary party in every country to enlist on their side, arc still agitated and discontented. But, thanks to the tr^ nerous efforts of the Conservative party, the nle down intelligence, education, and property by the force of numbers; their ceaseless endeavours to sway the popular elections, in every part of the country, by brutal violence and rabble in timidation, is the mostrryin*; sin which liosrls them. It will hang like a dead weight about their necks in the page of history ; it will blast for ever their characters in the eyes oi pos- terity; it will stamp ihem as men who sought to subvert all the ii ' :ii.il rela- tions of nature; ton . la r worse than a political revolution; and subject Eng- land to that rule of the multitude, whirh muSi engender a Reign of Terror and a British Na- poleon. ' — , , .. ^1 .| , , — ^ , — • WriitPfi »t>orily after llio rpjcpllon of tlie Rpfoira Dill l)y ttiu Ilouve of Peers. .^14 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Our author gives the following graphic pic- ture of the state of France for a year and a half after the Revolution of July. How exactly docs it depict the state of the British islands after eighteen months of popular domination! "For eighteen months the greatest political lessons have been taught to France. On the one hand, we have seen what it has cost its rulers to have attempted to subvert the laws; on theotlier what such a catastrophe costs a nation, e/en when it is most innocently in- volved in it. The state, shaken to its centre, does not settle down without long efforts. The farther the imagination of the people has been carried, the more extravagant the expectations they have been permitted to form, the more difficulty have the unchained passions to sub- mit to the yoke of constituted authority, or le- gal freedom. Real liberty, patient, wise, and regular, irritates as a fetter those who, having conquered by the sword, cannot conceive any better arbiter for human affairs. To insurrec- tion for the laws, succeeds everywhere, and without intermission, insurrection against the laws. From all quarters, the desire is mani- fested for new conquests, a new futurity ; and that devouring disquietude knows no barrier, before which the ambitions, the hatreds, the theories, the destruction of men, may be ar- rested. It appears to the reformers, that all rights should perish, because one has fallen. There is no longer «>i institution xvliich they do not attack, nor an interest u-hich does not feel itself com- promisid. The disorder of ideas becomes uni- versal , the anxiety of minds irresistible. A city, with 100,000 armed men in the streets, no longer feels itself in safety. Should the public spirit aro*e itself, it is only to fall under the weight of popular excesses, and still more dis- quieting apprehension. For long Avill prevail that universal and irresistible languor ; hardly in a generation will the political body regain its life, its security, its confidence in itself. What has occasioned this calamitous state of things? Simply this. Force— /jo;j!(/nr force, has usurped a place in the destinies of the na- tion, and its appearance necessarily inflicts a fatal wound on the regular order of human society. Every existence has been endanger- ed when that principle was proclaimed." — Pp. 50, 51. " England has done the same to its sovereign as the legislators of July ; and God has since granted to that nation one hundred and forty years of prosperity and glory. But let it be observed, that when it abandoned the principle of legitimacy, England made no change in its social institutions. The Aristocracy still retained their ascendency: though the keystone of the arch was thrown down, they removed none of its foundations. But suppose that the English people had proceeded, at the same time that Ihey overthrew the Stuarts, to overturn their Civil laws and hereditary peerage — to force through Parliamentary Reform, remodel juries, bind all authorilifs beneath the yoke of the po- pulace, extended funrtainental changes into the state, the church, and the army: had it tole- rated a doctrine u^hich is anarchy itself, the doctrine of universal suffrage: suppose, in fine, that it had '■een in the first fervour of the revolutianary intoxication, that parliament had laid the asfl to all subsisting institutions : then, I say, that the Revolution of 1688 would most certainly have led the English people to their ruin ; that it would have brought forth nothing bul tyranny, or been stifled in blood and tears "— Pp. 59, 60. The real state of France, under the Restora- tion, has been the subject of gross misrepre- sentation from all the liberal writers in Europe. Let us hear the testimony of this supporter of the Revolution of July, to its practical opera- tion. " The government of the Restoration was a constitutional, an aristocratic, and a free mon- archy. It was monarchical in its essence, and in the prerogatives which it reserved to the crown. It was free, that is no longer contested. In- violability of persons and property; personal freedom; the liberty of the press; equality in the eye of law ; the institution of juries ; in- dependence in the judiciary body ; responsi- bility in the agents of power; comprised every thing that was ever known of freedom in the universe. Public freedom consisted in the division of the legislative authority betweeo the king and the people — the independence of both Chambers — the annual voting of supplies — the freedom of the periodical press — the es- tablishment of a representative government. " Democracy, in that regime, was, Godknows, neither unknown nor disarmed. For in a coun- try where the aristocracy is an hotel, open to whoever can afford to enter it, it as necessarily forms part of the democracy as the head does of the body. The whole body of society has gained the universal admissibility, and the real admission of all to every species of public employment; the complete equality of taxa- tion ; the eligibility of all to the electoral body; the inevitable preponderance of the middling orders in the elections ; in fine, the entire com- mand of the periodical press. " At the time of the promulgation of the Charter, France had not the least idea of what freedom was. That Revolution of 40 years' duration, which had rolled over us, incessantly resounding with the name of liberty, had passed utray ivithout leaving a conception of -what it really was. Coups d'etat — that is, strokes by the force of tbe popular party — composed all its annals, equally with all that was to be learn- ed from it; and these vioJent measures never revolted the opinion of the public, as being contrary to true freedom, which ever rejects force, and reposes only on justice, but merely spread dismay and horror through the ranks of the opposite party. The only stru^-^le wa^ who should get the command of these terrible arms. On the one hand, these triumphs were called order; on the other, liberty. No one gave them their true appellation, which was a return to the state of barbarous ages, a resto- ration of the rule of the strongest."— Pp. 115, 116. These observations are worthy of the most profound meditation. Historical truth is be- ginning to emerge from the fury of party am- bition. Here we have it admitted by a libera, historian, that throughout the whole course of the French revolution, that is, of the resurreo EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 315 non and rule of the masses, there was not only no trace of liberty established, but no idea of liberty acqiiired. Successive coups d'etat, perpetual insurrection ; a continued struggle for the rule of these formidable bodies of the citizens, constituted its whole histor}-. They fell at last under the yoke of Napoleon, easily and will- ingly, because they had never tasted of real freedom. That blessing was given to them, for the first time, under a constitutional mon- archy and a hereditary peerage ; in a word, in a mixed government. How instructive the lesson to those who have made such strenuous endeavours to ovcrluni the mixed govcnwicnt of Britain ; to establish here the ruinous prepon- derance of numbers, and beat down the free- dom of thought, by the brutal violence of the multitude. The following observations are singularly striking. Their application need not be point- ed out ; one would imagine they were written to depict the course to which the reforming administration is rapidly approaching. " There is in the world but two courses of policy : the one is regular, legitimate, cautious : it leans for support, not on the physical strength, but the moral intelligence of man- kind, and concedes influence less to the num- bers than the lights, the stability, the services, the love of order, of the superior class of citizens. "This lofty and even policy respects within the laws, and without the rights of nations, which constitutes the moral law of the uni- verse. It conducts mankind slowly and gradu- ally to those ameliorations which God has made as the end of our efforts, and the com- pensation of our miseries; but it knows that Providence has prescribed two conditions to this progress, — patience and justice. "The other policy has totally dificrcnt rules, and an entirely different method of procedure. Force, brutal force, constitutes at once its prin- ciple and its law. You will ever distinguish it by ihc^e symptoms. In all contests belwefii citizens, parties, or kingdoms, in every time and in every place, it discards the authority of ]'ustic<*, which is called the safely of the peo- ple; that is to say, the prcvniliiit^ nhjrrl of popular ambition, nr, in nttur tmrdi, tiirrc fnrrt, c<>nie» in itn $tfad. Would you know its internal policy : difTcrcDce of opinion is considered as a crime ; «U'.pirion is arrest; punishment, death: it ktiMU - no law but force to govern mankind. Kr • Ttcrnal policy. It r'-u'anls nfilher thf 1 of tr^nties nor the rights of neu- trals, nor the inviolability of their territories, nor the conditions of their capitulations: its diplomacy is nolhini? else but war; that is to say. for<'e, its last n'sourcc in all cmergfiicirs. In its internal governnienl it has recourse to no ltni;lhenfd disrusmnn, In no dtlay», Jio thiw dtlil- eratinn.1 .• caprice, anger, murder, cut short all questions, without permitting the other side to be heanl. In a word, in that system, force think-;, deliberates, wishes, and executes. It rejects all the authority of time and the lessons of experience ; the past it destroys, the future it devours. It must invade every thing, over- come every thin?, in a sinijle day. Marrhim; •n the head of incnaring tnafxi, it rampth nil iriihcs, «fi ruistance, all genius, all grandeur, all virttu, to bend before those terrible waves, ivhere thirc is no- thing enlightened which is not perverted, nor worlh'g %vhich is not buried in obscurity. What it calls liberty consists in the power of dictating its caprice to the rest of mankind; to the judge on the seat of justice, to the citizen at his fireside, to the legislator in his curule chair, to the king on his throne. Thus it advances, overturning, destroying. But do not speak to it of building ; .that is beyond its power. It is the monster of Asia, which can extinguish but not produce existence." — Pp 230, 231. At the moment that we are translating this terrible picture, meetings of the masses of man kind have been convened, by the reforming agents, in every part of the country, where by possibility they could be got together, to control and overturn the decisions of parliament. Fifty, sixty, and seventy thousand men, are stated to have been assembled at Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Edinburgh : their numbers are grossly exaggerated ; disorders wilfully ascribed to them; menacing language falsely put into their mouth in order to intimi- date the more sober and virtuous class of citi- zens. The brickbat and bludgeon system is invoked to cover the freedom of the next, as it did of the last general election, and obtain that triumph from the force of brutal violence, which it despairs of efl!ecting by the sober in- fluence of reason or justice. Who is so blind as not to see in this ostentatious parade of numbers, as opposed to knowledge ; in this ap- peal to violence, in default of argument; in til's recourse to the force of masses, to over- come the energ}- of patriotism, the same revo- lutionary spirit which Salvandy has so well described as forming the scourge of modem France, and which never yet,became predomi- nant in a country, without involving high and low in one promiscuous ruin ? "England," says the same eloquf^ut writer, " has two edifices standing near to i;uh other: in the one, assemble from generation to gene- ration, to defend the ancient liberties of their country, all that the three kintrdiuns can as- semble that is illustrious or r> ' : it is the chapel of St. Stephens. Ti . • com- bated Pitt and Fox: there we have seen Brougham, Peel, and Canning, engaged in those noble strifes which elevate the dignity ol human nature, and the very sight of which is enough to attach the mintl to freedom for the rest of its life \\ a few paces distance you find another arena, other combats, other cham- pions : physical force contending with its like ; man striiegiing with his fellow-creature for a miserable prize, and exerting no ray of intelli- gence, but to plant his blows with more accu racy in the body of his antag< nist. From iha' sprctacic to the glorious one exhibited in p.ir liamcnt, the distance is not greater than from revolutionarv liberty to constitutional free- dom."— P. 233. To what does the atrocious system of popu lar intimidation, so long encoiira^ed or taken advantage of by the reforming party, necessa- rily lead but to such a species of rev»Ifltianary liberty; in other words, to the unrestrained ty- ranny of the mob, over all that is A\j,\\i\\c(], of virtuous, or praiseworthy, in society ? Ii will 816 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. tc the eternal disgrace of that party ; it will be the damning record of the reforming adminis- tration, tliat in the straggle for power, in the pursuit of chimerical and perilous changes, they invoked the aid of these detestable allies, and periled the very existence of society upon a struggle in which they could not be success- ful bu^ by the aid of powers which never yet were let loose without devastating the world with their fury. " lu vain," continues our author, " the Move- ment party protest against such a result, and strive to support their opinions by the strange paradox, that the anarchy, towards which all their efforts are urging us, will this time be gen- tle, pacific, beneficent ; that it will bring back the days of legitimacy, and bring them back by flowery paths" This brilliant colouring to the horrors of anarchy is one of the most deplora- ble productions of the spirit of party. For my part, I see it in colours of blood; and that not merely from historic recollection, but the na- ture of things. Doubtless we will not see the Reign of Terror under the same aspect : we will not see a Committee of Public Safety holding France enchained with a hand of iron : we will not see that abominable centralization of power: but what we will see is a domici- liary terror, more rapid and more atrocious ; more destructive than on the first occasion, be- cause it will be more nearly allied to the pas- sion fo( gain and plunder. What will ulti- mately f ome out of it, God only knows ; but this we may well afiirm, that when the revolu- tionary party shall become master of France, it will slay and spoil as it has slain and spoiled ; that it will decimate the higher classes as it has decimated them. I assert, that those of the present leaders of the party who shall oppose themselves to this horrible result, and assuredly the greater number will do so, will be crushed under the wheels of the chariot which they have so insanely put in motion. I maintain that this is a principle of its existence — a law of nature; in fine, the means destined by Providence for its extinction. Existing solely on the support of the masses of mankind; having no support but in their aid, it can admit of no genius to rule its destinies but their genius. Thenceforward it is condemned, for its existence and Us power, to model itself on the multitude : to live and reign according'to its dictation. And the multitude, to use the nervous words of Odillon Barrot, is ' characterized by barbarity through- out all the earth.' "Thence it is that every state, which has once opened the door to democratic doctrines, totters under the draught, and falls, if it is not speedily disgorged. Thence it is that every society which has received, which has become intoxicated with them, abjures the force of rea- son, devotes itself to the convulsions of anar- cny, and bids at once a long adieu to civiliza- tion and to freedom. For the revolutionary party, while they are incessantly speaking of ameliorations and of perfection, is a thous°and limes more adverse to the progress of the so- tial order and of the human mind, than the party »f theancient regime, which at least had its prin- cipal seat in the higher regions of society; a region cultivated, fruitful in intelligence, and where the progress of improvement, howeveJ suspended for a time by the spirit of party, can- not fail speedily to regain its course. But our Revolutionists do more ; they bring us back to the barbarous ages, and do so at one bound. All their policy maybe reduced to two points, within, Revolution; without, War. Every where it is the same — an appeal to the law ot the strongest; a return to the ages of barba- rism."— P. 248. Salvandy paints the classes whose incessant agitation is producing these disastrous effects. They are not peculiar to France, but will be found in equal strength on this side of the Channel. " Would you know who are the men, and what are the passions, which thus nourish the flame of Revolution ; which stain with blood, or shake with terror the world; which sadden the people, extinguish industry, disturb repose, and suspend the progress of nations 1 Behold that crowd of young men, fierce republicans, barristers without briefs, physicians without patients, who make a Revolution to fill up their vacant hours — ambitious equally to have their names inscribed in the roll of indictments for the courts of assizes, as in the records of fame. And it is for such ambitions that blood has flowed in Poland, Italy, and Lyons ! The ri- valry of kings never occasioned more disas- ters."— P. 270. One of the most interesting parts of this va- luable work, is the clear and luminous account which the author gives of the practical changes in the constitution, ideas, and morals, of France, by the late Revolution. Every word of it may be applied to the perils which this country runs from the Reform Bill. It is evi- dent that France has irrecoverably plunged in- to the revolutionary stream, and that it will swallow up its liberties, its morals, in the end, its existence. "The constitution of the National Guard," saj's our author, " is monstrous from beginning to end. There has sprung from it hitherto more good than evil, because the spirit of the people is still better than the institutions which the revolutionary party have given it; and that they have not hitherto used the arms so insane- ly given them, without any consideration. But this cannot continue ; the election of ofiicers by the privates is subversive of all the princi- ples of government. The right of election has been given to them ivithout reserve, in direct vio- lation of the Charter, on the precedent of 1791, and in conformity to the wishes of M. Lafayette. " In this National Guard, this first of political powers, since the maintenance of the Charter is directly intrusted to it — in that power, the most democratic that ever existed upon earth, since it consists of six million of citizens, equal among each other, and possessing equally the right of suffrage, which consists in a bayonet and ball-cartridges, we have not established for any ranks any condition, either of election or of eligibility. It is almost miraculous that the anarchists have not more generally succeeded in seizing that terrible arm.. They have done so, hoAvever, in many places. Thence has come that scandal, that terrible calamity of the National Guards taking part in tile insure H EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTIOIV OF 1830. 317 rections, and marching in the ranks of anar- chy with drums beating and colours flying. The sword is now our only refuge, and the sword is turned against us ! While I am yet writing these convictions, in the silence of me- ditation and grief, a voice stronger than mine proclaims them in accents of thunder. Lyons has shown them written in blood. It is the handwriting on the wall which appeared to Belshazzarr"— P. 391. Of the changes in the electoral body, and the power of parliament, effected since the Revolu- tion of Jul}', he gives the following account: " The power of parliament has been strength- ened by all which the royal authority has lost. It has gained in addition the power of propos- ing laws in either chamber. The elective power, above all, has been immensely extend- ed; for of the two chambers, that \\-hich was esteemed the most durable, and was intended to give stability to our institutions, has been so cnuelly mutilated by the exclusions following the Revolution of July, and the subscquciit crea- tions to scn'e a particular purpose, that it is no longer of any weight in the stale. The whole powers of government have centred in the Chamber of Deputies." The right of election has been extended to 300,000 Frenchmen ; the great colleges have been abolished; the qualification for eligibility has been lowered one half as the qualification for electing; and the farmers have been sub- stituted fur the great proprietors in the power of a double vote. The power of regulating the affairs of departments has been devolved to 800,000 citizens; that of regulating the com- munes to 2,.500,000. The power of arms has been surrendered to all ; and the power of electing its leaders given to the whole armed force without distinction. " In this way property is entirely excluded from ail influence in the election of magis- trates; it has but one privilege left, that of bearing the largest part of the burdens, and every sp<'cics of outrage, vexation, and abuse. As a natural consequence, the communes have been ill administered, and nothing but the worst passions regulate the cleriifin of thrir officers. The municipal councils arc com- posed f>{ infinitely worse members than they were before the portentous addition made to the niimbT of ihoir electors. To secure the triumph of h.iving a bad mayor, a mayor suited ;o their bisf and ignorant jealousies, they are constrained to elect bad magistrates. Mysatu abyntum vocal. " In the political class of electors, the cfTects of the democratic changes have bnen Mill worse. Tlie pmrcr nf iiinhi lirii lirromr. irrrnittililr. Thf': electoral body, whieh for fifteen years ha^ strugglf'il for the liberties of France, has been dispossessed by a body possessing less inde- pendence, less intelligpncc, which understands less thf duties to which it is called. Every- where the refjirrlahlc rliisurr, ture nf (iriiii; oul- Xolffl, h'lvc ttnycd away from tht clcrlinns. In the fepartment in which I write, an hundred Toices have carried the election, because 300 respectable electors have not made ihrir ap- pearance. In all parts of the kingdom, the same melancholy spectacle presents itself. The law has made a class arbiters of the af« fairs of the kingdom, which has the good sense to perceive its utter unfitness for the task, or its inability to contend with the furious torrent with which it is surrounded ; and the conse* quence everywhere has been, that intrigue, and every unworthy passion, govern the elec- tions, and a set of miserable low intriguers rule France with a rod of iron. In the stats, the department, the communes, the National Guard, the prospect is the same. The same principle governs the organization, or rather disorganization, throughout the whole of so- ciety. Universally it is the lower part of the electoral body, tvhich, being the most mtmerous, the most reckless, and the 7nost compact, casts the bw lance; in short, it is the tail which governs the head. There is the profound grievance which endangers all our liberties. On such con- ditions, no social union is possible among men. " Recently our electors have made a dis- covery, which fixes in these inferior regions not merely the power of election, but the whole political authority in the state ; it is the prac- tice of exacting from their representatives, before they are elected, pledges as to every view sure of importance which is to come before them. By that single expedient, the representative system, with all its guarantees and blessings, has crumbled into dust. Its fundamental prin- ciple is, that the three great powers form the head of the state ; that all throe discuss, de- liberate, decide, with equal freedom on the afi'airs of the state. The guarantee of this freedom consists in the composition of these powers, the slow method of their procedure, the length of previous debates, and the control of each branch of the legislature by the others. But the exacting of pledges from members of parliament destroys all this. Deliberation and choice are placed at the very bottom of the political ladder, and there alone. Wliat do I say! Deliberation! the thiug is unknown even there. A hair-brained student seizes at the gate of a city a peasant, asks him if he is desirous to see feudality with all its seig- nrurial rights re-established, jMits into his hands a name to vote for, which will preserve him from all these calamities, and having thus sent hun totally deluded into the election hall, returns to his companions, and laughs with them at having thus secured a vote for the abolition of the jieerage. ".\s little is the jn<*linalion of the elector* consulted in their preliminary resolutions. It is in the wine-shops, amidst the fumes of intoxi- cation, that the greatest questions arc decided; without hearing the other side, 'without any knowledge on the subjerl; without tin- small- est information as to the matter on which aa irrevocable decision is thus taken. This ia what is called the liberty of democracy; a brutal, ignorant, reckless liberty, which cuts short all disrussion. and derides every ques- tion without knowledge, without discussion, without examination, from the mere force of passion." Of the present slate of the French press. w« have the following emphatic account. De- mocracy, it will be seen, pro>e|ves in i>looil. Now, the case is widely diHerenf — we have arrived at terror at one leap. It is while knowing it, while viewing it full in the fare, that it is se- riously recommended. We have, or we affect, the unhappy passion for blood. The speeches of Robespierre ami St. Just are printed and sold for a few sous, Imring nut onbj his f pitch in fiirnur of the Siiprrmf Tirins;. .Ml this goes on in peaceable times, when we are .•\ll as yet in cold blood, without the double excuse of terror and passion which palliated their enormities — Poetry has taken the same line. The ('"nsii- tutionil, while publishing their revolting pane- .gyrics on blood, expresses no horror at this tendency. Incessantly we am told the reicm of blood cannot be renewed ; but our Jays 320 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. have done more, they have removed all horror at it."— P. 421. On the dissolution of the hereditary peerage, the great conquest of the Revolution, the fol- lowing striking observations are made. "The democrats, in speaking of the destruc- tion of the hereditary peerage, imagine that ihey have only sacrificed an institution. There never was a more grievous mistake ; they have destroyed a principle. They have thrown into the gulf the sole conservative principle that the Revolution had left ; the sole stone in the edifice which recalls the past ; the sole force in the constitution which subsists of itself By that great stroke, France has violently detached itself from the Euro- pean continent, violently thrown itself beyond the Atlantic, violently married itself to the virgin soil of Pennsylvania, whither we bring an ancient, discontented, and divided society; a population overflowing, which, having no deserts to expand over, must recoil upon it- self, and tear out its own entrails ; in fine, the tastes of servitude, the appetite for domina- tion and anarchy, anti-religious doctrines, anti- social passions, at which that young state, which bore Washington, nourished freedom, and believes in God, would stand aghast. " The middling rank has this evil inherent in its composition ; placed on the confines of physical struggle, the intervention of force does not surprise it ; it submits to its tyranny without revolt. Has it defended France, for the last sixteen months, from the leaden scep- tre which has so cruelly weighed upon her destinies 1 What a spectacle was exhibited when the Chamber of Peers, resplendent with talent, with virtues, with recollections dear to France, by its conscientious votes for so many years, was forced to vote against its conviction ; forced, I say, to bend its powerful head before a bridal, jealous, and ignorant vndtitude. The class which could command such a sacrifice, en- force such a national humiliation, is incapable of governing France ; and will never preserve the empire, but suffer it to fall into the jaws of the pitiless enemy, who is ever ready to devour it." — P. 487. " No government is possible, where the mor- tal antipathy exists, which in France alienates the lower classes in possession of power from the ascendant of education or fortune. Can any one believe that power will ultimately re- main m the hands of that intermediate class which is detached from the interests of pro- perty, without being allied to the multitude 1 Is It not evident, that its nathral tendency is to separate itself daily more and more from the first class, to unite itself to the second 1 Com- munity of hatred will occasion unity of exer- tion ; and the more that the abyss is enlarged which separates the present depositaries^f power from its natural possessors, the more will the masses enter into a share, and finally the exclusive possession, of power. Thence it will proceed from demolition to demolition, from disorder to disorder, by an inevitable pro- gress, and must at length end in the anti-social state, the rule of the multitude. "The moment that the opinion of the domi- nant classes disregards established interests, that it takes a pleasure in violating those august principles which constitute the soul of society, Ave see an abyss begin to open ; the earth quakes beneath our feet — the commirnity is shaken to its very entrails. Theti begins a pro- found and universal sense of suffering. Capital disappears : talents retreat — become irritated or corrupted. The national genius becomes intoxicated — precipitates itself into every species of disorder, and bears aloft, not as a light, but a torch of conflagration, its useless flame. The whole nation is seized with dis- quietude and sickness, as on the eve of those convulsions which shake the earth, and trouble at once the air, the earth, and the sea. Every one seeks the causes of this extraordinary state; it is to be found in one alone — the social state is trembling to its foundations. " This is precisely the state we have been in for sixteen months. To conceal it is impossi- ble. What is required is to endeavour to remedy its disorders. France is well aware that it would be happy if it had only lost a fifth \ of its immense capital during that period. Every i individual in the kingdom has lost a large portion of his incotne. And yet the Revolution of 1830 was the most rapid and the least bloody re- corded in history. If we look nearer, we shall discover that every one of us is less secure of his property than he was before that moral earthquake. Every one is less secure of his head, though the reign of death has not yet commenced; and in that universal feeling of insecurity is to be found t'iie source of the uni- , versal suffering." — II. 491. But we must conclude, however reluctantly these copious extracts. Were we to translate every passage which is striking in itself, which bears in the most extraordinary way on the present cri-sis in this country, we should transcribe the whole of this eloquent and pro- found disquisition. If it had been written in this country, it would have been set down as the work of some furious anti-reformer; of some violent Tory, blind to the progress of events, insensible to the change of society. It is the work, however, of no anti-reformer, but of a liberal Parisian historian, a decided sup- porter at the time of the Revolution of July ; a powerful opponent of the Bourbons for fifteen years in the Chamber of Deputies. He is commended in the highest terms by Lady Morgan, as one of the rising lights of the age ;* and that stamps his character as a leader of the liberal party. But he has become enlightened, as all the world will be,' to the real tendency of the revolutionary spirit, by that most certain of all preceptors, the suffer- ing it has occasioned. Salvandy, like all the liberal party in France, while he clearly perceives the deplorable state to which their Revolution has brought them, and the fatal tendency of the democratic spirit which the triumph of July has so strongly de- veloped, is unable to discover the remote cause of the disasters which overwhelm them At this distance from the scene of action, wo can clearly discern it. " Ephraim," says the Scripture, "has gone to his idols ^et him ♦ France, ii. 342. DESERTION OF PORTUGAL. 931 alone." In these words is to be found the secrer of the universal suffering, the dcplora- ole condition, the merciless tyranny, which prevails in France. It is labouring under the chastisement of Heaven. An oflended Deity has rained down upon it a worse scourge than the brimstone which destroyed the cities of the Jordan — the scourge of its own passions and vices. The terrible cruelty of the Reign of Ter- ror — the enormous injustice of the revolution- ary rule, is registered in the book of fate ; the universal abandonment of religion by all the influential classes, has led to the extirpation of all the barriers against anarchy which are fitted to secure the well-being of society. Its fate is sealed ; its glories are gone ; the un- fettered march of passion will overthrow every public and private virtue ; and national ruin will be the consequence. We are follow- ing in the same course, and will most certainly share in the same punishment. In this melancholy prospect let us be thank- ful that the conservative party have nothing with which to reproach themselves ; that though doomed to share in the punishment, they are entirely guiltless of the crime. Noble indeed as was the conduct of the Duke of Wellington, in coming forward at the eleventh hour, to extricate the crown from the perilous situation in which it was placed, and the de- grading thraldom to which it was subjected, we rejoice, from the bottom of our hearts, that the attempt was frustrated. Had he gone ci; with the bill as it stood, from a sense of overwhelming necessity, ail its consequences would have been laid on its opponents. The Whigs brought in the Reform Bill — let them have the dreadful celebrity of carrying it through. Let them inscribe on their banners the overthrow of the constitution; let them go down to posterity as the destroyers of a cen- tury and a half of glory; let them be stigma- tized in the page of history as the men who overthrew the liberties of England. Never despairing of their countiy, let the great and noble Conservative party stand aloof from the fatal career of revolution ; let them remain for ever excluded from power, rather than gain it by the sacrifice of one iota of principle ; and steadily resisting the march of wickedness, and all the allurements of ambition, take for their motto the words of ancient duty, '"Fais ce que dois: advienne ce que pourra." DESERTIOTs^ OF rORTUGAL* Lightly as in a moment of political frenzy, and under the influence of the passion for innovation, we may speak of the wisdom of our ancestors, their measures were founded on considerations which will survive the tempest of the present times. They arose not from any sagacity in them superior to what we possess, but from experience having forced upon them prudf-nt measures from the pressure of ne- cessity- As France is the power which had been found by experience to be most formida- ble to the liberties of Europe, and in an espe- cial manner perilous to the independence of England, our policy for two hundred years has been foundcil npon the principle, that Ilnllaiid on the one side, and Portugal on the oth<-r, should be supported against it. By a close alliance with these two powers, we extended our arms, as it were, around our powerful neighbour; she could not go far in any direc- tion williout encounlering either the one or the other. Ho strongly was the necessity of this felt, that so far bank as 1GG.3, in the treaty concluiled with Portugal, it was stipulated "that England should resent any insult or ag- gression offered to Portugal in the s.imc way, and with the same power as if its own domi- nions were invadeil." The result has proved the wisdom of their stipulations. In the two greatest wars which have distracted Europe for the last two centu- ries, the Netherlands and the Peninsula have been Ihe theatre where the armies of France and England have encountered each other. * Blackwood's Mag.n/.inc, December, lb31, 21 France has never been cfTcctually checked but when assailed in Spain and Flanders. Five- and-twenty years' peace followed the treaty cf Utrecht, and sixteen have already followed the peace of Paris. All other treaties lor the last hundred and fifty years can only be considered as truces in comparison. Such is the import- ance of the Peninsula, that a considerable success there is almost sulhcicnt to neutralize the greatest advantages in the central parts of Europe; the victory of .Mmanza had well nigh neutralized the triumphs of Oudeiiarde. Ra- millies, and Malplaurces and armies of England, while its own fi)rce was not so considerable as to render its people jealous of the protection, or averse to the generals, of England. The result proved the wisdom of the choice made of Portui;al as iha fulcrum on which the military power of Eng- land, when engaged in contiiK'nt.il war, should be rested. It is there alone that an uncon- querable stand was made against the force.s of ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Napoleon. That which neither the firmness of Austria, nor the valour of Prussia, nor the power of Russia could accomplish, has been achieved by this little slate, backed by the might and the energy of England. Austria has to lament the defects of Ulm and Wagram ; Prussia the overthrow of Jena; Russia the catastrophes of Austerlitz and Friedland ; but the career of Portugal, in the same terrible strife, was one of uninterrupted success ; be- fore the rocks of Torres Vedras, the waves of Gallic aggression first permanently receded ; and from the strongholds of the Tagus, the British standards advanced to a career of glory greater than ever graced the days of her Hen- rys and her Edwards. It is a point on which military men are at variance, whether fortresses are of more value on the frontier or in the centre of a menaced state. Perhaps the question may be solved by a distinction : — where the state assailed is one of firstrate importance, as France or Austria, fortified towns on its frontier are of incalcula- ble importance, because, if the invading army stops to invest them, it gives time for great armaments in the interior; if it pushes on and neglects them, it necessarily becomes so weak- ened by the detachments made for the purpose of maintaining their blockade, that it is inca- pable of achieving any considerable success. Two memorable examples of this occurred in French Flanders in 1793, when the invading army, an hundred and twenty thousand strong, was so long delayed by besieging the frontier fortresses of Valenciennes, Conde, Maubeuge, and Landrecy, that time was given for the Convention to organize and equip the great armaments in the interior, which finally re- pelled the invasion ; and in Iiombardy, in 1796, when the single fortress of Mantua arrested the career of Napoleon for six months, and gave time for Austria to assemble no less than four successive and powerful armies for its relief. On the other hand, the extraordinary advantage attending the great central fortifica- tions of Wellington at Torres Vedras, and the corresponding successes gained by Skrzynecki, from the possession of Warsaw, Zamosc, and Modlin, during the late Polish war, and by Napoleon, from the fortresses of Dresden, Torgau, and Wittemberg, on the Elbe, in 1813, demonstrate, that where the state assailed is more inconsiderable when compared to the attacking force, fortifications are of more avail when placed in the centre of the threatened state, and when its armies, retiring upon their central strongholds, find both a point d'appui in case of disaster, and an interior line of com- munication, M-hich compensates inferiority of forces, and aflTords an opportunity for accumu- lating masses on detached bodies of the enemy. But his majesty's present government have solved the question in a totally difll^rent man- ner. Tiiey have relinquished both the frontier and the central fortresses which bridled France ; both those which checked its irrup- tion into the centre of Europe, and those which afforded a secure and central position on which the armies of England could combat when lualters became more serious. We have lost both the frontier barrier of Marlborough ix Flanders, and the interior barrier of Welling. ton in Portugal ; with one hand we have aban- doned the safeguard of northern, with the other the citadel of southern Europe. Deviating for the first time from the policy of two hundred years, we have not only loaded Portugal with injuries and indignities our» selves, but we have permitted her to be tht victim of revolutionary violence and rapine on the part of France. The Portuguese wines, long the favoured object of British protection, have been abandoned; the duties of French and Oporto wines have been equal- ized, and our ancient and irreconcilable ene- my placed on the footing of the most favoured nation ! The consequence of this must in time be the destruction or serious injury of the im- mense capital invested in the raising of port wine on the banks of the Douro. The cultiva- tion of Avine there has been nursed up by a , century's protection, and brought to its pre- sent iiourishing state by the fostering influence of the British market. But how is that exces- sive and exotic state of cultivation to continue, when the duties on Portuguese and French wines are equalized, and the merchants of Bordeaux can, from a shorter distance, send wines adapted to the English taste from the mouth of the Garonne 1 Two shillings a gal- lon has been taken off French, and as much laid on Portuguese wines; the Portuguese grower, therefore, in competition with the French, finds himself saddled with a difference of duty amounting to four shillings a gallon. It requires no argument to show that such a difl^erence of taxation deprives the Portuguese of all their former advantages, and must in the end extinguish the extraordinary growth of vines in the province of Entre Douro Minho. What are the advantages which ministers proposv^ to themselves from this abandonment of their ancient ally ? Is it that the English commerce with France is so much more con- siderable than that of Portugal, that it is worth while to lose the one in order to gain the other? The reverse is the fact — the British exports to France are only 700,000/. a year, while those to Portugal amount to 2,000,OOOZ. Is it that France has done so much more for British commerce than Portugal 7 The re- verse is the fact — France has, by the most rigid system of prohibitions, excluded all Bri- tish manufactures from its shores ; while Por- tugal has, by a series of the most favourable treaties, given them the greatest possible en- couragement. Is it because a more extend- ed commerce with France may in future be anticipated from the friendly intercourse be- tween the tM^o countries, and a spirit of rising liberality has manifested itself on the part of j its manufacturers and merchants ? The re- verse is the fact. France, so nearly in its northern parts in the same latitude with Eng- land, has the same coal, the same steam-en- gines, the same manufactures, whereas Portu- gal, exposed to the influence of a vertical suuj without coal or manufacturing capital, is unable to compete with any of the produc- DESERTION OF PORTUGAL. 329 tions of British industry. The consequence is, that the utmost possible jealousy has ai- wa)'s, and especially of late years, existed on the part of the French against the British manufactures; and that all our measures for their encouragement have been met by in- creased duties, and more rigid prohibitions of the produce of our industry. Is it because France has been so much more friendly, of late j'ears, to Britain than Portugal ] The reverse is the fact. France has, for three centuries, done every thing she possibly could to destroy our industry and our inde- pendence, while Portugal has done every thing in her power to support the one and the other. The reason of this difference in the con- duct of the two states, is founded in the dif- ference of the physical situation of the two countries, and of their climate and produce. Portugal, the country of the vine and the olive, without coal, wood, or fabrics of any sort, destitute of canals or carriage-roads, intersected by immense mountain ridges, is as incapable of competing with the fabrics or manufoctures of England, as England is of emulating their oil, fruit, and wines. The case might have been the same with France, if it had been possessed merely by its south- ern provinces ; but the northern lying nearly in the same latitude as England, with their coal mines, cotton and iron manufactories, are in exactly the same line of industry as the British counties, and their jealousy in consequence of our manufactures is exces- sive. The manufacturers of Rouen and Ly- ons, being a much more opulent and \xnited body than the peasant vine-growers of the south, have got the entire control of govern- ment, and hence the extraordinary rigour with which they exclude our manufactures, and the inconsiderable amount of the trade which we carry on with that populous king- dom. This jealousy, being founded on simi- larity of industry, and the rivalry of the same kind of manufactures, will continue to the end of lime. By encouraging the wines of France, therefore, we are favouring the industry of a country which has not only always been our enemy, but never will make any return in facilitating the consumption of our manufac- tures ! By encouraging the wines of Portugal, we are fostering the industry of a country which has always been our frifMitl ; and, from the absence of all manufacturing jf-alousy, may be relied upon as likely to continue per- manently to take off the greatest possible amount of our manufactures. Hut this is not all. Not content with in- j Aiding this severe blow upon the industry of an allied state, which takes of 2,0(10,006/. a year of otir produce, and is so likely to con- tinue to do so, we have insulted and injured Portugal in the tenderest point, and alltnvi-d our new allv, revolutionary Franci*. to destroy iier national inilependence, and extinguish all recollenion of the protection and the guardian- ship of England. Don Miguel, as everybodv knows, is rk fiirtiy, if not (k jnri\ king of Portugal. He is cot a legiiimutc monarch ; he stands upon the people's choice. We do not pretend to vindi- cate either his character or his system of go* vernment. They are both said to be bac^ though, from the falsehood on this subject which evidently pervades the English press, and the firm support which the Portuguese have given him when under the ban of all Europe, there is every reason to believe that the accounts we receive are grossly exagge- rated: but of that we have no authentic ac- counts. Suffice it to say, the Portuguese have chosen him for their sovereign, and, after the experience of both, prefer an absolute monar- chy to the democratic constitution with which they were visited from this country. Noav, our government is avowedly founded on the system of non-intervention ; and when the French and Belgians made choice of a revo- lutionary monarch, we were not slow in snap- ping asunder all treaties with the expelled dynasty, and recognising the new monarch whom they placed on the throne. Don Miguel has now held for four years the Portuguese sceptrp ; his throne is more firmly established than that of either Louis Philippe or Leopold. He has received neither countenance nor aid from any foreign power; and if he had not been agreeable to the great bulk of the Portu- guese, he must, long ere this, have ceased to reign. On what ground, then, is the recogni- tion of Don Miguel so long delayed"? Why is he driven into a course of irregular and des perate conduct, from the refusal of the Eu- ropean powers to admit his title 1 If they acted on the principle of never recognising any one but the legitimate monarch, we could understand the consistency of their conduct; but after having made such haste to recognise the revolutionary monarchs, it is utterly im- possible to discover any ground on which we can withhold the same homage to the absolute one, or refuse the same liberty of election to the Portuguese which we have given to the French and Belgian people. But this is not all — France has committed an act of the most lawless and violent kind to the Portuguese government; and we have not only done nothing to check, but every thing to encourage it. Two Frenchmen were arrested, it is said, for political offences in Portugal, and sentenced to pay a heavy fine by the courts there. What they had done we know not. The Portuguese say they were endeavouring to effect a revolution in that country — the French deny the fact, and assert that they were unjustly condemned. However that may be, the French fleet sailed to the Tagus, forced the passage of the forts, and took possession of the fleet without any declaration of war. They required the re- versal of the sentence against their condemned countrymen, the payment of a large sum in name of damages to them, and a public apo- logy; and having gained all these objects. rAry rnrrial ci;un with the Carlists, or had even been adopted by them under the influence of an}- other cause than the sense of unbearable executions of a similar kind previously suffered by them, and begun by the Revolutionists, and the overwhelming ne- cessity of mournful retaliation, not onl}' would their cause be unworthy of the sympathy of any brave or good man, but that Don Carlos himself would "be a monster unfit to live," But admitting all this, we see it as clearly proved as an)-^ proposition in geometrj^ that this execrable S)'stem bcgrni u-ith the Spanish democrats, and them alone, and was never resort- ed to by the Carlists, till years after they had suffered under its atrocious execution by their ene- mies ; and the Carlist valle3-s were filled with mourning from the death of old men, women and children, murdered in cold blood by the democratic tyrants who sought to plunder and enslave them. And in such circumstances, we know that retaliation, however dreadful and mournful an extremit}', is unavoidable, and that brave and humane men are forced, like Zuma- lacarregui, to sentence prisoners to be shot, even when the order, as it did from him, draws tears like rain from their eyes. Unquestion- ably none can admire more than we do the noble proclamation of the Duke of York in 1793, in answer to the savage orders of the Directory to the Revolutionary armies of France to give no quarter. None can feel greater exultation at the humane conduct of the Vendeans, who, in reply to a similar order from their inhuman oppressors, sent eleven thousand prisoners back, with their heads merely shaved, to the republican lines. But it belongs to the prosperous and the secure to act up throne, — the ctmsequencc of the triumph of the one or the other on the future interests of religion and freedom, — the cruel severities to which the Carlists were subjected by their blood-thirsty enemies liefore they were reluc- tantly driven to retaliation, — and the fri{;htfu 3S8 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. consequences which have resulted, and must continue to result while it endures, from our iniquitous co-operation with the cause of op- pression. All these momentous topics are treated in the volumes before us with a clear- ness, temper, moderation, and ability which leave nothing to be desired, and render them by far the most important work on the affairs of the Peninsula which has yet issued from the European press. When we see the ability and candour, the courage and energy, the learn- ing and eloquence, which, unbought by the gold of the stock exchange, uninfluenced by speculations in Spanish bonds, unsolicited by the rewards of a deceived democratic and com- mission-granting administration, is thus gene- rously and gratuitously coming forward from so many quarters at once in defence of the cause of religious truth and independence, we recognise the revival of the spirit of old Eng- land ; we indulge a hope that the press, like the Thames water, may yet work off its own impurities ; and we are ready to take our humble part in so good a cause, and bear with equanimity the torrent of abuse with which the servile writers of the Treasury, or the hireling scribes of the stock exchange, will assail our endeavours to give greater publicity than, in a selfish and engrossed age, they might otherwise obtain to their all-important disclosures. From the statements proved, and documents brought forward, in Mr. Walton's work, it is manifest, — 1. That the constitution of 1812, so long the darling object of democratic contention in the Peninsula, and now the avowed basis of its government, is an ultra-republican system, which never obtained the legal consent of the nation, but was merely imposed on their countrymen for their own selfish ends by a knot of urban democrats at Cadiz, who at tlrat unhappy period, when four-fifths of the country was occupied by the French armies, had con- trived to usurp the powers, not only of sove- reignty, but of remodelling the state. 2. That it is not only utterly unsuitable to the Spanish people, and necessarily produc- tive of (as it ever has produced) nothing but plunder, massacre, and democratic oppression ; but is of so absurd and ill-considered a cha- racter as even, if established in England, amidst a people habituated for centuries to the exer- cise of freedom, would tear society to atoms in six months. 3. That, from experience of the devastating effects of this ultra-radical constitution, and the sordid cupidity of the democratic agents whom it instantly brings to the head of afi'airs, the great majority of the Spanish nation, almost all who are distinguished by their patriotism, principle, or good sense, are decidedly opposed to its continuance ; that though often established by military violence or democratic intrigue, it has ever fallen to the ground by its own weight when not upheld, as it now is, by powerful lb- reign co-operation ; and that at this moment, if this co-operation wt1-c really withdrawn, it would sink to the dust in three months, with all .ts accessaries of democratic spoliation, royal- ist blond, and universal suffering, never more '> risi 4. That the democratic party, since the time that nine-tenths of the nation had become the decided enemies of their usurpation, fell upon the expedient of engrafting the maintenance of their cause upon a disputed succession to the throne, — prevailed on Ferdinand VII., when in a state of dotage, to alter the law of royai succession in favour of his infant daughter,— got together the farce of a Cortes, to give their sanction to the illegal act, — and have since contrived to keep her on the throne, as a mere puppet, to serve as a cover to their revolution- ary designs, despite the clearly proved voice of the nation, by filling the army and all civii offices with their own creatures, and maintain ing an usurped and hateful usurpation by the aid of urban democracy, foreign co-operation, and stock-jobbing assistance. 5. That the title of Don Carlos to the throne is clear, not less on the legitimate principle of legal succession, which we were bound, in the most solemn manner, by the treaty of Utrecht, to guaranty, than on the liberal prin- ciple of a violation of the social contract, and a trampling under foot all the rights and pri- vileges of the people, dissolving the title of a sovereign, how well-founded soever in itself, to the supreme direction of aflairs. 6. That the frightful system of murdering the prisoners was first introduced by the Revo- lutionists ; that it was carried on with ruthless severity and heartless rigour by them /oj- years before it was imitated by the Royalists ; that they have repeatedly made endeavours, both pub- licly and privately, to put a stop to its con- tinuance, but always been foiled by the refusal of their savage antagonists. 7. That the English auxiliaries, both under General Evans and Lord John Hay, lent their powerful aid to the Revolutionary party, not only without the English government having made any effectual stipulation in favour of the abandoning that atrocious system of warfare, but at a time when, without such aid, the wai was on the point of being brought to a glorious termination by the freeborn mountaineers of Biscay and Navarre, and have thus become implicated, through the fault or neglect of their government, in all the woful conse- quences of a continuance of the struggle. 8. That the stand made by the Basque pro- vinces is for their rights and their liberties, their privileges and their immunities, enjoyed by their ancestors for five hundred years, asserted by them in every age with a con- stancy and spirit exceeding even the far-famed resolution of the Swiss Cantons, but which were all reft from them at one fell swoop by the ruthless tyranny of a democratic despotism. It is impossible, in the limits of an article in a periodical, to quote all the documents, or de tail all the facts, which Mr. Walton has accu mulated, with irresistible force, to prove ever) one of these propositions. If any one doubts them, we earnestly recommend him to studj his work ; and if he is not convinced, we say, without hesitation, neither would he be per- suaded though one rose from the dead. But even in this cursory notice a few leading facts may be brought forward, which cannot fail to throw a clear light on this important subject, and CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. S2d may tend to aid the efTorts of those brave and enlightened men who are now striving to pre- vent Briti:sh blood from being any longer shed in the most unjust of causes, and hinder the British standards from being any longer un- furled, in the name of freedom and liberty, to uphold the cause of infidelity, rapine, and op- pression. Of the manner in which the Constitution of 1812 was fabricated by a cli(juc of urban agita- tors in Cadiz, when blockaded by the French forces in 1810, and thrust, amidst the agonies of the war with Napoleon, on an unconscious or unwilling nation, the following account is given by our author: — "In the decrees and other preparations made by the central junta, in anticipation of the meeting of Cortes, the old mode of convening the national a'^scmbly had been abandoned, the jUuminati congregated at Seville being of opinion 'that the ancient usages \verc more a matter of historical research than of practical importance.' It was therefore agreed, that in their stead a new electoral law should be framed, more congenial to the general princi- ple of representation ; the result of which was, that those cities which had deputies in the Cortes last assembled were to have a voice, as well as the superior juntas, and that one deputy should besides be elected for every fifty thou- sand souls. It was also settled that the South American provinces, at the time actually in a state of insurrection, should, for the present, have substitutes chosen for them, until they sent over delegates duly elected. It is a cu- rious fact, that on the 18th of the previous April, Joseph Bonaparte had convened the Cortes, and it was at the time thought that this example served to stimulate the central junto to perform their long forgotten promise. " The new fashioned Cortes opened on the 24th of September, consisting only of popular deputies, or one estate, the other two being excluded. When the inaugural ceremonies were over, the members assembled declared them- selves legally constituted in 'general and extra- ordinary Cortes,' in whom the national sove- reignty resided ; or, in other wor(N, they at once declared themselves a constituent assembly. " In one respect, the assembly of the Spanish Cortes of 1810, resrmblcd that of the French Stales-general in 1791, the members being mostly new men whose names had scarcely been heard of Ijefurc. In another sense, the disparity between the two assemblies was great. The States-general opened their sit- tings under legal forms, with the three orders, ani^, after stormy di'bales,o»/' csiulr ijrrird nr nli- Korlicil ihi' oihrr Iwn, when the triumphant party, declaring themselves a constituent assembly, proceeded to enact laws and frame a constitu- tion ; in the end, rendering themselves superior to the authority which had convened them,nnis pension, nml lliiiM iilitaiiii'il pimxfssioii iil'lln' (iraiij:! ih- <'alini; liaiiinirrs on llir pavement ! iindi'r liiM windows; a prrlly sicniliiant indication of Iho fate Willi h awaited him if lie xinncd a^iainst tlw sove- , roign p«opIe." 834 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. "The large cities were, in a contrary sense, agitateil by clubs and debating societies. At arst these clubs had been the organs of go- vernment; now they wished to dictate the means by which the commonwealth was to be saved. They publicly reproached the minis- ters for their apathy, almost accused them of being leagued with the king, whom they de- nounced as the chief plotter, and his palace as a ready receptacle for the Scrvilcs." And now we come to a most important sub- ject — one to which we earnestly request the serious attention of our countrymen. It is the COMMENCEMENT of that war of extermination, which, as Mr. Walton justly observes, has ever since raged in the Peninsula. Let us see with whom the responsibility of its introduction rests : — " Catalonia was the cause of great disquie- tude to the constitutionalists ; and in order to put down the Army of the Faith, and dislodge the regency from the Seo de Urgel, Mina was appointed early in September to command that principality, and entered on his duties at Le- rida. As he himself states, he found ' the factious, to the number of thirty-three thousand, masters of almost all the country, in posses- sion of various strong places and fortresses, protected by a great part of the towns, and, what was of still greater importance, they had a centre of union and government, viz., the titular Eegcncy of Spain, established in Urgel ;' adding, ' these were the elements which pre- sented themselves in Catalonia.' After notic- ing his preparations, he proceeds thus: — 'I commenced operations on the 13th; and a month and a half sufficed me to organize a small army, to raise the siege of Cervera, and take possession of Castell-fuUit. / ordered the total destruction of this last mentioned toivn, as a punishment for the obstinacy of its rebellious inhabitants and defenders ; and by way of re- torting the contempt with which they replied to the repeated messages I sent them, as well as for a warning to the rest, upon its ruins I ordered the following inscription to be placed : 'Here stood Castell-fuUit. Towns, take ivaming; shelter not the enemies of your country.' " Thus spoke and acted the hero of Cata- lonia at the close of 1822 ! After enumerating a variety of other exploits, the captain-general comes to his attack upon the fortress of Urgel, where he experienced difficulties, and exuUing- ly adds, ' that in the end constancy and hero- ism were victorious, and six hundred profligates and robbers, taken out of the prisons, who form- ed the greater part of the faction of the ring- leader Romagosa, the defender of the fortress of Urgel, expiated their crimes on the morning of (he evaniation by their death upon the field.' The men ;hus barbarously butchered were royalists, the countrymen of this savage pacificator .' their only crime was that of having embraced a cause opposed to his own. " As a proof of the spirit with which the constitutionalists were then actuated, subjoined is an extract from a proclamation, issued by Mina a few days before the Duke d'Angou- leme entered Madrid: — 'Art. 1. All persons who may have been members of a junta, so- eiety, or corporation opposed to the present system of government, as well as those wha may have enlisted men or conspired agains the constitution, shall be irrevocably shot the irt stant they are taken. Art. 2. Any town in whict the inhabitants are called cut against the con* slitutional troops shall be burned to ashes, and till one stone is not left upon another.' — At tht same time that the governor of Catalonia pub- lished this proclamation, General Villacampa at Seville issued a similar edict, in which he declared that ' every one who by word or deed co-operates in the rebellion shall be held to be a traitor and pimished as such ; further, that any one knowing the situation of the factions and concealing it shall be held to be a traitor, and as such treated.' This edict closes with the following : ' The members of the municipali- ties of towns situated at the distance of six leagues from a constitutional column, who may fail hourly to send in a report of the move- ments of the factious in their vicinity, shall pay out of their own property a fine of ten thousand rials; and if any injury arise out of the omission, he shall be judged in a military manner.' " It was, therefore, not without reason, that, on the 20th November, 1822, Count Nessel- rode declared, in a public state paper, expres- sive of the feelings and resolutions of the Allied Powers regarding Spain — "Anarchy appeared in the train of revolu- tion — disorder in that of anarchy. Long years of tranquil possession ceased to be a sufficient title to property ; the most sacred rights were disputed; ruinous loans and contributions un- ceasingly renewed, destructive of public wealth and ruinous to private fortunes. Religion was despoiled of her patrimony, and the throne of popular respect. The royal dignity was out- raged, the supreme authority having passed over to assemblies influenced by the blind pas- sions of the multitude. To complete these calamities, on the 7th July, blood was seen to flow in the palace, whilst civil war raged throughout the Peninsula." The armed intervention to which these events in the Peninsula gave rise on the part of France in 1823, is well known, and when put to the proof, it speedily appeared on how hollow a foundation the whole fabric of revolutionary power in the Peninsula, with its whole adjuncts of church spoliation, democratic plunder, and royalist massacre, really rested. The French troops marched without opposition from the Bidassoa to Cadiz; hardly a shot was fired in defence of the constitution of 1812; even the armed intervention of a stranger, and the hate- ful presence of French soldiers, ever so obnox- ious in Spain, could not rouse any resistance to the invaders. The recollection of the le- gions of Napoleon, and the terrible hardships of the Peninsular war, were forgotten in the more recent horrors of democratic ascenden- cy. But an event happened at Corunna which made a profound impression, and powerfully contributed to stamp on the future progress of the contest that savage character, by which it is still unhappily distingultned. " At Corunna the most barbarous occurrence of the many which sullied the annals of the constitutional contest took place. The French CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 3;?5 guns commanded the baj% in consequence of which a number of royalists confined in a pon- toon ro^e upon their guards, cut the cables, and drifted out with the tide. Fearful that the other prisoners in the Castle of San Anton might equally escape, the military governor on the 22d ordered fifty-two of them to be brought to the town, and iu the afternoon they were lodged in the prison; but the civil au- thorities objecting to this step, in consequence of the crowded state of the prisons, as well as of the convents, the unhappy men were put into a small vessel and conveyed down the bay. After doubling the point on which the castle stands, and in front of the light-house, called the Tower of Hercules, they iccre broule heading: — 'Pragmatic Sanr tion, having the force of law, decreed by Kinf^ (Charles IV. on the petition of the Cortes fof 17H9, and ordereil to be published by hif reigning majesty for the jurpriunl observance of law 2, title 15, parlida 2, establishing the regular succession to the crown of Spain ;* alleged to have been in force for seven hun« dred years. " The publication was also carried intc ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. effect with the usual solemnities. The rain fell in torrents ; nevertheless the magistrates and heralds proceeded to do their duty by reading the decree aloud and posting it up in the public places. The streets of Madrid were thronged with an anxious and inquiring mul- titude, who did not hesitate, in no measured terms, to express their surprise and disgust at this glaring imposture. Nobody could under- stand how the reigning sovereign, of his own will and accord, could venture to sanction a law alleged to have been passed by his father forty-one years before, and which, even if it had then been perfected, (and the reverse was the case,) could not be held valid for obvious reasons." li; is not our intention to follow Mr. Walton through his able argument against the legality of the change thus unceremoniously intro- duced of the king's mm authority, without any recourse whatever to a Cortes or any other national authority. It was not even attempted to get any such authority ; but it was pretend- ed that it had been granted when the altera- tion on the law of succession had been made by Charles IV. in 1789. The absurdity of supposing that so important a matter as the descent of the crown could be legally altered by a pretended act of a king on the petition of the Cortes, without its even being known, or even heard of, for forty years after its alleged enactment, is too obvious to require illustra- tion. Add to this, that the pretended altera- tion by Charles IV. has oicver yet been produced, or seen by any one ; and that the fact of its existence rests on the assertion of a bed-ridden doting king in favour of his own daughter. And even if such a deed did exist, it would, by the fundamental laws of Spain, be utterly null in a question with Don Carlos, or the princes born before its promulgation, as not having been published to the magistrates of the provinces in the way required by the Con- stitution. The more defective the title of the queen to the crown, however, the better for the Liberals : they had now a revolutionary dy- nasty implicated in their struggle for supreme power. Upon the publication of this decree, Don Carlos, the next male in succession, and di- rectly struck at by the ordinance, was solicit- ed by the chief nobles of Spain instantly to assume the government. " Several grandees," says Mr. Walton, "now leagued with the opposite party, together with generals and other influential persons, urged the Infante Don Carlos to come forward and accept the crown, not only as his right, but also as the only means of preserving public tranquillity. The conscientious prince reject- ed their ofler, though well aware of the extent of his pis, ivas accordingly shot xvilhout mercy ; the same severity was extended to the less respon- sible peasantry, and the most unsparing efforts were made to extinguish the hopes of Charles V. in the blood of everj'^ class of his adherents ; a merciless, and at the same time impolitic rigour, by which fuel was added to a half- extinguished flame, and the discontent of a bold and warlike population converted into the most bitter and desperate hostility." These inhuman massacres, however, did not intimidate the Carlists : but wherever they rose in arms, the same execrable system of murder was pursued by the queen's generals. "The -Carlists," says our author, "one and all, felt that faith had not been kept with them ; that the proclamations of the queen's ofhcers were only intended to entrap the unwary, and that their real aim was extermination. " The cries of fresh victims constantly re- sounded in their ears, and they continued to shudder at the remembrance of the butcheries which they had already witnessed. Brigadier Tina, who had been captured and his band dispersed, was on the 2Gth November shot near Alcaniz. At Calatayud tiventy-one Carlists had previously met with the same fate, and among them two ecclesiastics, a fact sufncient to show the brutalizing effects of the new sys- tem. Morella was entered on the 13th Decem- ber, after a close investment by General Bu- tron, the governor of Tortosa, but the Carlist garrison escaped, and were afterwards over- taken at Calanda, near Alcaniz, when their commander. Baron Herves, his wife and three children, fell into the hands of the queen's troops. Agreeably to an order of the day, published by Viceroy Espeleta, the comman- der of the royalist volunteers of Torreblanca, D. Cristoval Fuste, and D. Pedro TiuTe, were shot at Zaragoza, in the morning of the 23d December; and on the 27'th, Baron Herves, and D. Vicente Gil, commander of the royalist volunteers, shared the same fate. At Vitoria, the son of a rich merchant, for whose ransom five thousand dollars were offered, was also shot by the orders of Valdcs, at a moment nhen a courier from Madrid could not pass without a large escort." And now the queen's government, embol- Icned by the success with which they had Hitherto butchered and massacred whoever appeared in arms against them, resolved on a till more sweeping and unjustifiable act of icmocratic despotism. This was the dcstruc- I ton of the lihcrtics and rights of the whole Basrc- rrdini:, clearly demonstrates some vital defect in our colonial policy. Nor is it dithcult to see where that error is to be found. We have loaded the produce of India — sugar, indigo, &c. — with duties of nearly a hundred per cent., while we have deluged them with our own manufactures at an import duly of Iwn or three per cent. In our anxiety to find a vent for our own manufactures on the continent of Hin- dostan, we seem to have entirely forgotten that there was another requisite indispensably necessary towards the success of our projects even for our own interests, — to give ihem the means of paying for them. Our conduct to- wards our colonies, equally with that to foreign states, has exhibited reciprocity nil on one side — with this material difference, that we have, in our blind anxiety to conciliate foreign states, allowed the whole benefits of the rec^- • Snc Cnlnniat Miirntine, No. 1.. arlirlo — "Fornien Trailn lo liiilin," — a lu.'WJy rstalilislii.'il iiiisri'llany, full oT valnaMc! irirnrtiialinii, and wliirli, if nindiirtiMl on rL'lil |iriiiii|ik'!!, will prove of llii; very lii^licsl iriiport- ai'ce. 354 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. procity treaties to rest with them ; while, in our selfish legislation towards our colonial subjects, we have taken the whole to our- selves. So vast is the importance of our Indian pos- sessions to the British empire, and so bound- less the market for her manufactures which might be opened if a truly wise and liberal policy were pursued towards our Indian pos- s;55ions, that there is nothing more to be re- gretted than that there has not hitherto issued from the press a popular and readable history of our Indian possessions. Auber has, indeed, with great industry, narrated the leading facts, and supported them by a variety of interesting official documents. But it is in vain to con- ceal, that his book possesses no attractions to the general reader ; and accordingly, although it will always be a standard book of reference to persons studying Indian affairs, it has not and will not produce any impression upon public thought. It was, therefore, with pecu- liar pleasure that we recently opened the Chapters on Indian History, just published by Mr. Thornton, already so favourably known to the eastern world by his work on India, and its State and Prospects. From the cursory ex- amination we have been able to give to this very interesting work, we have only reason to regret that the author has not been more com- prehensive in his plan, and that, instead of chapters on British India since the adminis- tration of Marquis Wellesley, in one volume, he has not given to the world a full history of the period in three. The work is distin- guished by judgment, candour, and research, and is, beyond all doubt, the most valuable that has yet appeared on the recent history of India. We would beg leave only to suggest to the able author, that his next edition should extend to two volumes, and should embrace the whole events of the period of which he treats ; in particular, that Lord Hastings' war in 1817 should be more fully enlarged upon ; and that greater exertions should be made, by the introduction of picturesque incidents and vivid descriptions, to interest the mass of the nation in a subject daily rising in importance, and on which they must soon be called upon to exercise the functions of direct legislation. To have engaged in and successfully ac- complished such an undertaking ; to have overcome so many and such formidable inter- vening obstacles, and planted the British guns in triumph on the walls of Herat, is one of the most glorious exploits which have ever graced the long annals of British military prowess. That our soldiers were undaunted in battle and irresistible in the breach has been often proved, in the fields alike of Asiatic and Euro- pean fame. But here they have exhibited qualities of a totally different kind, and in which hitherto they were not supposed to have been equal to the troops of other states. They have successfully accomplished marches, unparalleled in modern times for their length and hardship ; surmounted mountain ranges, compared to which the passage of the St. Bernard by Napoleon must sink into insig- nificance • and solved the great problem, so mucn lebated, and hitherto unascertained in military science, as to the practicability of aa European force, with the implements and in- cumbrances of modern warfare, surmounting the desert and mountain tracts which separate Persia from Hindostan. Involved as we are in the pressing interests of domestic politics, and in the never-ending agitation of domestic concerns, the attention of the British public has been little attracted by this stupendous event ; but it is one evidently calculated to fix the attention of the great military nations on the continent, and which will stand forth in imperishable lustre in the annals of history. There is one result which may and should folWw from our undertakings in Affghanistaun, ! which, if properly improved, may render it the \ means of strengthening, in the most essential manner, our possessions in the east. The In- dus and the Himalaya are the natural frontier i of our dominions ; they are what the Danube and the Rhine were to the Romans, and the former of these streams to Napoleon's empire. The Indus is navigable for twelve hundred miles, and for nine hundred by steamers of war and mercantile vessels of heavy burden. It descends nearly in a straight line from the impassable barrier of the Himalaya to the Indian ocean ; its stream is so rapid, and its surface so broad, that no hostile force can pos- sibly cross it in the face of a powerful defen- sive marine. Never was an empire which had such a frontier for its protection ; never was such abase afforded for militaiy operations as on both its banks. Provisions for any num- ber of soldiers ; warlike stores to any amount ; cannon sufficient for a hundred thousand men, can with ease ascend its waves. Vain is the rapidity of its current ; the power of steam has given to civilized man the means of over- coming it ; and before many years are expired, British vessels, from every harbour in the United Kingdom, may ascend that mighty stream, and open fresh and hitherto unheard- of markets for British industry in the bound- less regions of Central Asia. Now, then, is the time to secure the advantages, and gain the mastery of this mercantile artery and fron- tier stream ; and, by means of fortified stations on its banks, and a powerful fleet of armed steamers in its bosom, to gain that impregna- ble barrier to our Indian possessions, against which, if duly supported by manly vigour at home, and wise administration in our Indian provinces, all the efforts of Northern ambition will beat in vain. But there is one consideration desei-ving of especial notice which necessarily follows from this successful irruption. The problem of marching overland to India is now solved ; the Russian guns have come down from Peters- burg to Herat, and the British have come up from Delhi to Cabool. English cannon are now planted in the embrasures, against which, twelve months ago, the Russian shot were di- rected; and if twenty thousand British could march from Delhi to Candahar and Cabool, forty thousand Russians may march from Jlstrakan to the Ganges and Calcutta. Our success has opened the path in the East to Russian ambi- tion ; — the stages of our ascending army point out the stations for their descending host ; and THE AFFGHANISTAUN EXPEDITION. 355 ihe ease with which our triumph has been eflected, will dispel any doubts which they may have entertained as to the practicability of ultimately accomplishing the long-cherish- ed object of their ambition, and conquering in Calcutta the empire of the east. This is the inevitable result of our success : but it is one which should excite no desponding feeling in anv British bosom ; and we allude to it, not with the selfish, unpatriotic design of chilling the national ardour at our success, but in order, if possible, to arouse the British people to a sense of the new and more extended duties to which they are called, and the wider sphere of danger and hostility in which they are in- volved. It is no longer possible to disguise that the sphere of hostility and diplomatic exertion has been immensely extended by our success in AfTghanistaun. Hitherto the politics of India have formed, as it were, a world to themselves ; a dark range of intervening mountains or arid deserts were supposed to separate Hindostan from Central Asia; and however much we might be disquieted at home by the progress of Russian or French ambition, no serious fears were entertained that either would be able to accomplish the Quixotic exploit of passing the western range of the Himalaya mountains. Now, however, this veil has been rent asunder — this mountain screen has been penetrated. The Russian power in Persia, and the British in India, now stand face to face : the advanced posts of both have touched Herat ; the high-road from St. Petersburg to Calcutta has been laid open by British hands. The advanced position we have gained must now be maintained ; if we retire, even from tributary or allied states, the charm of our in- vincibility is gone ; the day when the god Ter- minus recoils before a foreign enemy, is the commencement of decline. We do not bring forward this consideration in order to blame the expedition; but in order to show into what a contest, and with what a power, it has neces- sarily brought us. Aflghanistaun is the out- post of Russia; Dost Mohammed, now exiled from his throne, was a vassal of tlic Czar; and wc must now contend fnr Ihe empire of the east, not with the rajahs of India, but the Moscovitc battalions. The reality of these anticipations as to the increased amount of the danger of a collision with Itnssia, which lias arisen from the trreat approximation of our outposts to iheirs. which the Alfghani^staun expedition has occasioned, is apparent. Already Russia has taken the alarm, and the expedition against Khiva shows that she has not less the inclination, than she unqursiionably has the power, of amply pro- viding for herself against what she derms the impending danger. No one can for a moment suppose that that expedition is really intended to chastise the rebellious Khan. Thirty thou- sand men, and a larire train of artillery, are not sent against an obscure chieftain in 'i'ar- tary, whom a few regiments of Cossacks would soon reduce to obedience. A glance at •he map will at once show what was the real bject in view. Khiva is situated on the Oxus, and Ihe Oxus flowa to the north-west from Ihe mountains which take their rise from the north' ern boundary of Cabool. Its stream is navi* gable to the foot of the AfTghanistaun moun- tains, and from the point where water commu- nication ceases, it is a passage of only five or six days to the valley of Cabool. If, therefore, the Russians once establish themselves at Cabool, they will have no difficulty in reach- ing the possessions of Shah Shoojah ; and their establishment will go far to outweigh the influence established by the British, by the AfTghanistaun expedition, among the Affghan- istaun tribes. Already, if recent account's can be relied on, this effect has become apparent Dost Mohammed, expelled from his kingdom, has found support among the Tartar tribes; backed by their support, he has ah-eady re-ap- peared over the hills, and regained part of hig dominions, and the British troops, on their re- turn to AfTghanistaun, have already received orders to halt. Let us hope that it is not in our case, as it was in that of the French at Moscow, that when they thought the campaigp over it was only going to commence.* Regarding, then, our success in AfTghanis taun as having accelerated by several years the approach of this great contest, it becomes the British nation well to consider what pre- parations they have made at home to maintain it. Have we equipped and manned a fleet capable of withstanding the formidable arma- ment which Nicholas has always ready for im mediate operations in the Baltic] Have wo fivc-and-twenty ships of the line and thirty frigates ready to meet the tldrij/ ships of the line and eighteen frigates which Nicholas has always equipped for sea at Cronstadt? Have we thirty thousand men in London ready to meet the thirty thousand veterans whom the Czar has constantly prepared to step on board his fleet on the shores of the Baltic ! Alas ! we have none of these things. We could not, to save London from destruction or the British empire from conquest, fit out three shi]is of the line to protect the mouth of the Thames, or assemble ten thousand men to save Woolwich or Portsmouth from conflagration. What be- twfi'n Radical economy in our army estimates, Will:: parsimony in our naval preparations, and (Jliartist violence in our manufacturing cities, we have neither a naval nor a military force to protect ourselves from destruction. .Ml that Sir Charles .Adam, one of the lord.i of llu; admiralty, could say on this subject last session of parliaim-nt was, that we had three fUipn of Ihe line rodiicing mere- ly the chivalrous valour of the high-bred cava- lier, but drawing forth "the might that slum- bers in a peasant's arm." The greatest achievements of genius, the noblest efforts of heroism, that have illustrat.-d the history of the species, have arisen from the eff'ortsof this principle. Thence the fight of Marathon and the glories of Salamis— the genius of Greece and the comiuesls of Rome— the heroism of 8empach and the devotion of Haarlem— the paintings of Raphael and the poetry of Tasso —the energy which covered with a velvet car- pet the slopes of the Alps, and the industry T»hich bridled the stormy seas of the German ocean— the burning passions which carried the French legions to Cadiz and the Kremlin, and the sustained fortitude which gave to Bri- tain the dominion of the Avaves. Thence, too, in its wider and unrestrained excesses, the greatest crimes which have disfigured the dark annals of human wickedness— the massacres of Athens and the banishments of Florence — the carnage cf Marius and the proscriptions of the Triumvirate— the murders of Cromwell and the bloodshed of Robespierre. As the democratic passion is thus a princi- ple of such vital and searching energj%so it is from it, when acting under due regulation and control, that the greatest and most durable ad- vances in social existence have sprung. Why are the shores of the Mediterranean the scene to which the pilgrim from every quarter of the globe journeys to visit at once the cradles of cfvilization, the birthplace of arts, of arms, of philosophy, of poetry, and the scenes of their highest and most glorious achievements'? Because freedom spread along its smiling shores; because the ruins of Athens and Sparta, of Rome and Carthage, of Tyre and Syracuse, lie on its margin ; because civiliza- tion, advancing with the white sails which glittered on its blue expanse, pierced, as if impelled by central heat, through the dark and barbarous regions of the Celtic race who peopled its shores. What gave Rome the empire of the world, and brought the vener- able ensigns bearing the words, "Senatus populusque Romanus," to the wall of Antoni- nus and the foot of the Atlas, the waters of the Euphrates and the Atlantic Ocean 1 Demo- cratic vigour. Democratic vigour, be it ob- served, duly coerced by Patrician poiver : the in- satiable ambition of successive consuls, guided by the wisdom of the senate ; the unconquer-' able and inexhaustible bands which, for cen- turies, issued from the Roman Forum. What has spread the British dominions over the habitable globe, and converted the ocean into a peaceful lake for its internal carriage, and made the winds the instruments of its blessings to mankind ; and spread its race in vast and inextinguishable multitudes through the new world? Democratic ambition; democratic am- bition, restrained and regulated at home by an ade(|uate weight of aristocratic power; a go- vernimnt which, guided by the stability of the patrician, but invigorated by the activity of tlie plebeian race, steadily advanced in con- quest, renown, and moral ascendency, till its fleets overspread the sea. and it has become a matter of cerlainly, that half the globe must be peopled by its descendants. The continued operation of this undying vigour and energy is still more clearly evinced in^the Anglo-American race, which originally sprung from the stern Puritans of Charles I.'s aire, which have developed all the peculiarities of the democratic character in unrestrained profusion amidst the boundless wastes which lie open to their enterprise. M. Tocqueville has described, with equal justice and eloquence the extra-.\m'Ticans will alone cover the immense spare rontained bctwcn llie polar regions and tlw tropics, ex- tendmg from the coast of the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean ; the territory which will pnilialily be ormpied by the Anir!o-.\ineri- cans at some future nine, may be roinpuled to equal three quarters of F.uropc in rxteut. The climate of the Union is upon the whole prefer- able to that of Europe, and its natural advan- 1 •.ages are not less great; ifis therefore evident . that its population will at some future time be | proportionate to our own. Europe, divided as ; U is between so many different nations, and | torn as it has been by incessant wars and the barbarous manners of the Middle Ages, has | lioiwiihstanding attained a population of 410 inhabitants to the square league. What caus« can prevent the United States from having as numerous a population in timel" "The time will therefove come when one hundred and fifty millions of men will be liv ing in North America, equal in condition, the progeny of one race, owing their origin to the same cause, and preserving the same civiliza- tion, the same language, the same religion, the same habits, the same manners, and imbued with the same opinions, propagated under the same forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is certain ; and it is a fact new to the world, a fact fraught with such portentous consequences as to baffle the efibrts even of the imagina- tion." It is not without reason, therefore, that we set out in this speculation, with the observa- tion, that great and durable effects on human afiairs are destined by Providence for the Br" tish race. And it is too obvious to admit of dispute, that the democratic principle amongst us is the great moving power which thus im- pels multitudes of civilized beings into the wilderness of nature. Nothing but that prin- ciple could effect such a change. Civilized man rarely emigrates; under a despotic go- vernment never. What colonies has China sent forth to people the wastes of Asia? Are the Hindoos to be found spread over the vas* archipelago of the Indian Ocean ? Kepublican Rome colonized the world; Republican Greece spread the light of civilization along the shores of the Mediterranean ; but Imperial Rome could never maintain the numbers of its own pro- vinces, and the Grecian empire slumbered on with a declining population for eleven hundred 3'ears. Is Italy, with its old civilized millions, or France, with its ardent and redundant pea santiy, the storehouse of nations from whenci the European race is to be diffused over the world ■? The colonies of Spain, torn by inter- nal factions, and a prey to furious passions, arc in the most miserable slate, and constantly declining in numbers!* The tendency of nations in a high state of civilization ever is to remain at home; to become wedded to the luxuries and enjoyments, the habits and refine- ments of an ariiiicial stale of existence, and regard all other people as rude and barbarous, unfit for the society, unequal to the reception of civilized existence, to slumber on for ages with a population, pour, leduiidant. and declin ing. .Siicli has fur ages hi-en the condition of the Chinese and the Hindoos, the Turks and the Persians, ihc Si)aniards and the Italians; and hence no great .settlements tif mankind have proceeded from their loins. What, then, is the centrifugal force which counteracts this inert tendency, and impels man frtim the heart of wealth, frtun the bosom of refinement, from the luxuries of civilization, to the forests and the wilderness! What scndi him forth into the desert, impelled by the eneriry of the savage character, but yet with all the powers and acquisitions of civilization at his command; with the axe in his hand, but the Bible in his pocket, and the lifle by his side? It is democracy which effects this prodigy; it is that insatiable passion which ♦ Tocquevillc. il. 439. 364 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. overcomes alike die habits and affections of societ3% and sends forth the civilized pilgrim far from his kindred, far from his home, far from the bones of his fathers, to seek amidst Transatlantic wilds that freedom and inde- pendence which his native country can no longer afford. It is in the restless activity which it engenders, the feverish desire of ele- vation which it awakens in all classes, the longing after a state of existence unattainable in long established states which it produces, that the centrifugal force of civilized man is to be found. Above an hundred thousand emi- grants from Great Britain, in the year 1833, settled in the British colonies; nearly two hundred thousand annually pass over to the whole of North America from the British isles ; and amidst the strife of parties, the collision of interest, the ardent hopes and chimerical anticipations incident to these days of transi- tion, the English race is profusely and indeli- bly transplanted into the boundless wastes prepared for its reception in the New World. As the democratic passion, however, is thus evidently the great moving power which is transferring the civilized European race to the remote corners of the earth, and the British navy, the vast vehicle raised up to supreme dominion, for its conveyance ; so it is of the utmost importance to observe, that if undue power is given to this impelling force, the ma- chine which is performing these prodigies may be destroyed, and the central force, instead of operating with a steady and salutary pressure upon mankind, suddenly burst its barriers, and for ever cease to affect their fortunes. A spring acts upon a machine only as long as it is loaded or restrained; remove the pressure, and its strength ceases to exist. This powerful andastonishingagency of the Anglo-Saxon race upon the fortunes of mankind, would be totally destroyed by the triumph of democracy in the British islands. Multitudes, indeed, during the convulsions consequent on so calamitous an event, would fly for refuge to the American shores, but in the grinding and irreversible despotism which would necessarily and speed- ily follow its occurrence, the vital energy would become extinct, which is now impelling the British race into every corner of the habitable earth. The stillness of despotism would suc- ceed the agitation of passion ; the inertness of aged civilization at once fall upon the bounded state. From the moment that British freedom is extinguished by the overthrow of aristoc ratio influence, and the erection of the Commons into despotic power, the sacred fire which now animates the vast fabric of its dominion will become extinct, and England will cease to direct the destinies of half the globe. The Conservative party in this country, therefore, are not merely charged with the preservation of its own freedom — they are intrusted with the destinies of mankind, and on the success of their exertions it depends whether the demo- cratic spirit in these islands is to be pre- served, as heretofore, in that subdued form which has directed its energy to the civiliza- tion of mankind, or to burst forth in those wild excesses which turn only to its own ruin, and the desolation of the world. While the naval strength and colonial domi- nions of England have steadily and unceas- ingly advanced in Western Europe, and its influence is in consequence spread over all the maritime regions of the globe, another, and an equally irresistible power, has risen up in the eastern hemisphere. If all the contests of centuries have turned to the advantage of the English navy, all the continental strifes have as unceasingly augmented the strength of Rus- sia. From the time of the Czar Peter, when it first emerged from obscurity to take a leading part in continental affairs, to the present mo- ment, its progress has been unbroken. Alone, of all other states, during that long period it has experienced no reverses, but constantly advanced in power, territory, and resources; for even the peace of Tilsit, which followed the disasters of Austerlitz and Friedland, was attended with an accession of territory. Dur- ing that period it has successively swallowed up Courland and Livonia, Poland, Finland, the Crimea, the. Ukraine, Wallachia, and Molda- via. Its southern frontier is now washed by the Danube ; its eastern is within fifty leagues of Berlin and Vienna; its advanced ports in the Baltic are almost within sight of Stock- holm ; its south-eastern boundary, stretching far over the Caucasus, sweeps down to Erivan and the foot of Mount Arrarat — Persia and Turkey are irrevocably subjected to its influ- ence ; a solemn treaty has given it the com- mand of the Dardanelles ; a subsidiary Mus- covite force has visited Scutari, and rescued the Osmanlis from destruction; and the Sultan Mahmoud retains Constantinople only as the viceroy of the northern autocrat. The politicians of the day assert that Russia will fall to pieces, and its power cease to be formidable to Western Europe or Central Asia- They never were more completely mistaken. Did Macedonia fall to pieces before it had sub- dued the Grecian commonwealths ; or Persia before it had conquered the Assyrian mon- archy ; or the Goths and Vandals before they had subverted the Roman empire! It is the general pressure of the north upon the south, not the force of any single state, which is the weight that is to be apprehended ; that pres- sure will not be lessened, but on the contrary greatly increased, if the vast Scythian tribes should separate into different empires. Though one Moscovite throne w^ere to be established at St. Petersburg, a second at Moscow, and a third at Constantinople, the general pressure of the Russian race, upon the southern states of Europe and Asia, would not be one whit diminished. Still the delight of a warmer cli- mate, the riches of long established civiliza- tion, the fruits and wines of the south, the women of Italy or Circassia, would attract the brood of winter to the regions of the sun. The various tribes of ths German race, the Gothic and Vandal swarms, the Huns and the Ostro- goths, were engaged in fierce and constant hostility with each t)ther ; and it was generally defeat and pressure from behind which im- pelled them upon their southern neighbours ; but that did not prevent them from bursting the barriers of the Danube and the Rhine, and overwhelming the civilization, and wealth, and THE FUTURE. 3Go discipline of the Romaa empire. Such inter- nal divisions only magnify the strength of the northern race by training them to the use of arms, and augmenting their military skill by constant exercise against each other; just as the long continued internal wars of the Euro- pean nations have established an irresistible superiority of their forces over those of the other quarters of the globe. In the end, the weight of the north thus matured, drawn forth and disciplined, will ever be turned to the fields of southern conquest. The moving power with these vast bodies of men is the lust of conquest, and a passion for southern enjoyment. Democracy is un- heeded or unknown amongst them; if im- ported from foreign lands it languishes and expires amidst the rigours of the climate. The energy and aspirations of men are concen- trated on conquest; a passion more natural, more durable, more universal than the demo- cratic vigour of advanced civilization. It speaks a language intelligible to the rudest of men; and rouses the passions of universal vehemence. Great changes may take place in human affairs ; but the time will never come when northern valour will not press on southern wealth; or refined corruption not require the renovating influence of indigent regeneration. This then is the other great moving power which in these days of transition is changing the destinies of mankind. Rapid as is the growth of the British race in America, it is not more rapid than that of the Russian in Europe and Asia. Fifty millions of men now furnish recruits to the Moscovite standards ; but thoir race doubles in every half century ; and before the year 1900, one hundred millions of men will be ready to pour from the frozen plains of Scythia on the plains of Central Asia and southern Europe. Occasional events may check or for a while turn aside the wave ; but its ultimate progress in these directions is cer- tain and irresistible. Before two centuries are over, Mohammedanism will be banished from Turkey, Asia Minor, and Persia, and a hundred millions of Christians will be settled in the regions now desolated by the standards of the Prophet. Their advance is as swift, as un- ceasing as that of the British race to the rocky belt of western America. "There are, at the present^time, two great nations in the world, which seem to tend to- wards the same end, although they started from different points: I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed: and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly assumed a most prominent place amongst the nations ; and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time. "All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their power; but these are still in tiie act of growth, ail the others are stopped, or continue to advance with extreme dilhculty; these are proceeding with ease and with celerity along a path to which the human eye can assign no term. The American struggles against the natura. obstacles which oppose him ; the adversariei of the Russian are men : the former combat* the wilderness and savage life ; the latter, civi lization with all its weapons and its arts ; the conquests of the one are therefore gained by the plough-share; those of the other by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon per- sonal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common sense of the citizens; the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm ; the principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same ; yet each of them seems tc be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe." There is something solemn and evidently providential in this ceaseless advance of the lords of the earth and the sea, into the deserted regions of the earth. The hand of Almighty power is distinctly visible, not only in the un- broken advance of both on their respective elements, but in the evident adaptation of the passions, habits, and government of each to the ends for which they were severally des- tined in the designs of nature. Would Rus- sian conquest have ever peopled the dark and untrodden forests of North America, or the deserted Savannahs of Australasia 1 Would the passions and the desires of the north bav« ever led them into the abode of the beaver anC the buffalo 1 Never ; for aught that their pas sions could have done these regions must have remained in primeval solitude and silence to the end of time. Could English democracy ever have penetrated the half-peopled, half- desert regions of Asia, and Christian civiliza tion, spreading in peaceful activity, have sup planted the Crescent in the original scats of the human racel Never; the isolated colonist^ with his axe and his Bible, would have been swept away by the Mameluke or the Spahi, and civilization, in its peaceful guise, would have perished under the squadrons of the Crescent. For aught that democracy could have done for Central Asia it must have re- mained the abode of anarchy and misrule to the end of human existence. But peaceful Christianity, urged on by democratic passions^ pierced the primeval solitude of the Americari forests; and warlike Christianity, stimulated by norlhern conquest, was fitted to subdue Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The Bible and the printing press converted the wilder- ness of North America into the abode of Christian millions; the Moscovite battalions marching under tiie standard of the Cross^ subjugated the already peopled regions of the Mussulman faitli. Not without reason then did tlie British navy and the Russian army emerge triumphant from the desperate strife of the French Rrvohition ; for on the victory ol each depended the destinies of half the globe. Democratic institutions will nut and cannot exist permanently in North America. The fri'^'htfnl anarchy which has prevailed in the suuihcrn stales, since the great interests de- pendent on slave emancipation were brought into jeopardy — the irresistible sway of tbfl aee ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. majority, and the rapid tendency of that ma- jority to deeds of atrocity and blood — the in- creasing jealousy, on mercantile grounds, of the northern and southern states, all demon- strate that the Union cannot permanently hold together, and that the innumerable millions of the Anglo-American race must be divided into separate states, like the descendants of the Gothic conquerors of Europe. Out of this second great settlement of mankind will arise separate kingdoms, and interests, and passions, as out of the first. But democratic habits and desires will still prevail, and long after neces- sity and the passions of an advanced stage of civilization have established firm and aristo- cratic governments, founded on the sway of property in the old states, republican ambition and jealousy will not cease to impel millions to the great wave that approaches the Rocky Mountains. Democratic ideas will not be mo- derated in the New World, till they have per- formed their destined end, and brought the Christian race to the shores of the Pacific. Arbitrary institutions will not for ever pre- vail in the Russian empire. As successive provinces and kingdoms are added to their vast dominions — as their sway extends over the regions of the south, the abode of wealth and long-established civilization, the passion for conquest will expire. Satiety will extinguish this as it does all other desires. With the ac- quisition of wealth, and the settlement in fixed aboiles, the desire of protection from arbitrary power will spring up, and the passion of free- dom will arise as it did in Greece, Italy, and modern Europe. Free institutions will ulti- mately appear in the realms conquered by Mos- covite, as they did in those won by Gothic va- lour. But the passions and desires of an earlier stage of existence will long agitate the millions of the Russo-Asiatic race ; and after democratic desires have arisen, and free in- stitutions exist in its oldest provinces, the wave of northern conquest will still be pressed on by semi-barbarous hordes from its remoter dominions. Freedom will gradually arise out of security and repose ; but the fever of con- quest will not be finally extinguished till it has performed its destined mission, and the stand- ards of the Cross are brought down to the In- dian Ocean. The French Revolution was the greatest and the most stupendous event of modern times ; it is from the throes consequent on its explo- sion that all the subsequent changes in human affairs have arisen. It sprung up in the spirit of infidelity ; it was early steeped in crime ; it reached the unparalleled height of general atheism, and shook all the thrones of the world by the fiery passions which it awakened. What was ihe final result of this second revolt of Lucifer, the Prince of the Morning 1 Was it that a great and durable impression on human affairs was made by the infidel race 1 Was 8t. Michael at last chained by thef demon ? No ! it was overruled by Almighty Power ; on either side it found the brazen walls which it could not pkss ; it sunk in the conflict, and ceased to have any farther direct influence on human affairs. In defiance of all its efforts the British navy and the Russian army rose Invincible above its arms; the champions of Christianity in the east and the leaders of re ligious freedom in the west, came forth, lik giants refreshed with wine, from the termina- tion of the fight. The infidel race which aimed at the dominion of the world, served only by their efforts to increase the strength of its destined rulers ; and from amidst the ruins of its power emerged the ark, which was to carry the tidings of salvation to the west- ern, and the invincible host Avhich was to spread the glad tidings of the gospel through the eastern world. Great, however, as were the pbwers thus let into human affairs, their operation must have been comparatively slow, and their influence inconsiderable, but for another circumstance which at the same time came into action. But a survey of human affairs leads to the conclu- sion, that when important changes in the social world are about to take place, a lever is not long of being supplied to week out the prodig} With the great religious change of the sixteenth century arose the art of printing; with the vast revolutions of the nineteenth, an agent of equal efficacy was provided. At the time, when the fleets of England were riding omnipotent on the ocean, at the very moment when th» gigantic hosts of infidel and revolutionarj power were scattered by the icy breath of winter, steam navigation Avas brought into action, and an agent appeared upon the theatre of the universe, destined to break through the most formidable barriers of nature. In Janu- ary, 1812, not one steam vessel existed in the world; now, on the Mississippi alone, there are a hundred and sixty. Vain hereafter are the waterless deserts of Persia, or the snowy ridges of the Himalaya — vain the impenetra- ble forests of America, or the deadly jungles of Asia. Even the death bestrodden gales of the Niger must yield to the force of scientific enterprise, and the fountains of the Nile themselves emerge from the awful obscurity of six thousand years. The great rivers of the world are now the highways of civilization and religion. The Russian battalions will securely commit themselves to the waves of the Euphrates, and waft again to the plains of Shinar the blessings of regular government and a beneficent faith; remounting the St. Lawrence and the Missouri, the British emi- grants will carry into the solitudes of the far west the Bib^e, and the wonders of English genius. Spectators of, or actors in, so mar- vellous a progress, let us act as becomes men called to such mighty destinies in human affairs ; let us never forget that it is to regulated freedom alone that these wonders are to be as- cribed ; and contemplate in the degraded and impotent condition of France, when placed beside these giants of the earth, the natural and deserved result of the revolutionary pas- sions and unbridled ambition which extin- guished prospects once as fair, and destroyed energies once as powerful, as that which now directs the destinies of half the globe.'' * Some of the preceding paragraphs have been trans- ferred into the last chapter of the History of Europq during the French Revolution : but they are retained here, where they originally appeared, as esnentially con- nected with the subject treated of and speculation* hazarded in this volume. GUIZOT. SS7 GUIZOT.* Machiatel was the first historian who seems »o have formed a conception of the philosophy of history. Before his time, the narrative of auman events was little more than a series of biographies, imperfectly connected together by a few slight sketches of the empires on which the actions of their heroes were exerted. In this style of historj', the ancient writers were. and to the end of time probably will continue to be, altogether, inimitable. Their skill in narrating a stor}'-, in developing the events of a life, in tracing the fortunes of a city or a state, as they were raised by a succession of illustrious patriots, or sunk by a series of op- pressive tyrants, has never been approached in modern times. The histories of Xenophon and Thucydides, of Livy and Sal lust, of Ccesar and Tacitus, are all more or less formed on this model ; and ihc more extended view of history, as embracing an account of the countries the transactions of which were narrated, originally formed, and to a great part executed by the father of historj', Herodotus, appears to have been, in an unaccountable manner, lost by his successors. In these immortal works, however, human transactions are uniformly regarded as they have been affected by, or called forth the agency of, individual men. We are never presented with the view of society in a mass ; as influenced by a series of causes and effects independent of the agency of individual man — or, to speak more correctly, in the development of which the agency is an unconscious, and often almost a passive, instrument. Constantly regarding history as an extensive species of biography, they not only did not withdraw the eye to the distance necessary to obtain such a general view of the progress of things, but they did the reverse. Their great object was to bring the eye so close as to see the whole vir- tues or vices of the principal figures which they exhibited on their moving panorama ; and in 80 doing, they rendered it incapable of per- ceiving, at the same time, the movement of thi" whole social body of which they fi'rmed a pari. Even Livy, in his pictured narrative of Kumnn victorif's, is essentially biographical. His inimitable work owes its enduring celebrity to the charming episodes of individuals, or cra- phir pictures of particular events, with which it abounds; scarce any general views cui ihi- progress of society, or the causes to which its astonishing progress in the Roman stale was •winir. arc to be found. In thf introduction to the life of Catiline, Sallust has given, with annqnalled powf^r, a sketch nf thr- causes whicti eorruptfd tlie republic; and if his work had been pursued in the same style, it would indeed have been a philosophical history. But Uf^ither the Catiline nor the Jugurthine war arc histo- ries ; they arc chapters of history, containing: : wo interesting biographies. Scattered through • DIackwood's Magazine, Dec. 1844. the writings of Tacitus are to be found nume- rous caustic and profound observations on human nature, and the increasing vices and selfishness of a corrupted age ; but like the maxims of Kochefoucault, it is to individual, not general, humanity that they refer; and they strike us as so admirably just, because they do not describe general causes operating upon society as a body — which often make little impression, save on a few reflecting minds — but strike direct to the human heart, in a way which comes home to the breast of every individual who reads them. Never was a juster observation than that the human mind is never quiescent; it may not give the external symptoms of action, but it does not cease to have the internal movement : it sleeps, but even then it dreams. Writers innumerable have declaimed on the night of the Middle Ages — on the deluge of barbarism which, under the Goths, flooded the world — on the torpor of the human intellect, under the combined pressure of savage violence and priestly superstition ; yet this was precisely the period wlien the minds of men, deprived of external vent, turned inwards on themselves; and that the learned and thoughtful, shut out from any active part in society by the general prevalence of military violence, sought, in the solitude of the cloister, employment in reflect- ing on the mind itself, and the general causes which, under its guidance, operated upon so- ciety. The influence of this great change in the direction of thought, at once appeared when knowledge, liberated from the monasteiy and the university, again took its place among the affairs of men. Machiavel in Italy, and Bacon in England, for the first time in the an- nals of knowledge, reasoned upon human affairs as a scioirc. They spoke of the minds of men as permanently governed by certain causes, and of known jirinciplcs always lead- ing to the same results ; they treated of politics as a science in which certain known laws ex- isted, and could be discovered, as in mechanics an_;'»«£ and trifling details of genealogy, courts, M'ars, and negotiations, in which it had, hitherto, in his country, been involved, to the more general contemplation of arts and philosophy, and the progress of human aftairs ; and, in some respects, he certainly eflected a great reformation on the ponderous annalists who had preceded him. But the foundation of his history was still biography ; he regarded human events only as they were grouped round two or three great men, or as they were influ- enced by the speculations of men of letters and science. The history of France he stigmatized as savage and worthless till the reign of Louis XIV.; the Russians he looked upon as no bet- ter than barbarians till the time of Peter the Great. He thought the philosophers alone all in all; till they arose, and a sovereign ap- peared who collected them round his throne, and shed on them the rays of royal favour, human events were not worth narrating; they were merely the contests of one set of savages plundering another. Religion, in his eyes, was a mere priestly delusion, to enslave and be- aighten mankind; from its oppression the greatest miseries of modern times had flowed ; the first step in the emancipation of the human mind was to chase for ever from the earth chose sacerdotal tyrants. The most free- thinking historian will now admit, that these views are essentially erroneous ; he will allow that, viewing Christianity merely as a human institution, its effect in restraining the violence of feudal anarchy was incalculable ; long ante- rior to the date of the philosophers, he will look for the broad foundation on which national character and institutions, for good or for evil, have been formed. Voltaire was of great ser- vice to history, by turning it from courts and camps to the progress of literature, science, and the arts— to the delineation of manners. And the preparation of anecdotes descriptive of character; but notwithstanding all his talent, he never got a glimpse of the general causes which influence society. He gave us the his- tory of philosophy, but not the philosophy of history. The ardent genius and pictorial eye of Gib- bon rendered him an incomparable delineator of events ; and his powerful mind made him ieize the general and characteristic features of society and manners, as they appear in dif- ferent parts of the world, as well as the traits of individual greatness. His descriptions of the Roman Empire, in the zenith of its power, as it existed in the time of Augustus — of its de- cline and long-protracted old age, under Con- stantine and his successors on the Byzantine throne — of the manners of the pastoral nations, who, under different names, and for a succes- sion of ages, pressed upon and at last o\ er turned the empire — of the Saracens, w.io issuing from the sands of Arabia, with the Koran in one hand and the cimeter in the other, urged on their resistless course, till they were arrested by the Atlantic on the one side and the Indian ocean on the other — of the stern crusaders, who, nursed amid the cloistered shades and castellated realms of Europe, strug- gled M'ith that devastating horde " Avhen 'twas strongest, and ruled it when 'twas.wildest" — of the long agony, silent decay, and ultimate resurrection of the Eternal Cit)' — are so man)^ immortal pictures, which, to the end of the world, will fascinate every ardent and imagin- ative mind. But, notwithstanding this incom- parable talent for general and characteristic description, he had not the mind necessary for a philosophical analysis of the series of causes which influence human events. He viewed religion -with a jaundiced and prejudiced eye — the fatal bequest of his age and French educa- tion, unworthy alike of his native candour and inherent strength of understan iing. He had profound philosophic ideas, ard occasionally let them out with admirable effect ; but the turn of his mind was essentially descriptive, and his powers were such in that brilliant depart- ment, that they wiled him from the less inviting contemplation of general causes. We turn over his fascinating pages without weaiying; but without ever discovering the general pro- gress or apparent tendency of human affairs. We look in vain for the profound reflections of Machiavel on the permanent results of cer- tain political combinations or experiments. He has led us through a "mighty maze," but he has made no attempt to show it "not without a plan." Hume is commonly called a philosophical historian, and so he is ; but he has even less than Gibbon the power of unfolding the gene- ral causes which influence the progress of human events. He was not, properly speak- ing, a philosophic historian, but a philosopher writing history — and these are very different things. The experienced statesman will often make a better delineator of the progress of human affairs than the philosophic recluse; for he is more practically acquainted M'ith their secret springs: it was not in the schools, but the forum or the palace, that Sallust, Ta- citus, and Burke acquired their deep insight into the human heart. Hume Avas gifted with admirable sagacity in political economy; and it is the good sense and depth of his views on that important subject, then for the first time brought to bear on the annals of man, that has chiefly gained for him, and v/ith justice, the character of a philosophic historian. To this may be added the inimitable clearness and rhetorical powers with which he has stated the principal arguments for and against the great changes in the English institutions which it fell to his lot to recount — arguments far abler than were either used by, or occurred to, the actors by whom they were brought about ; for it is seldom that a Hume is found in the councils of men. With equal ability too, he has given periodical sketches of man ners, customs, and habits, mingled with vala GUIZOT. 369 able details on finance, commerce, and prices ^all elements, and most important ones, in the formation of philosophical history. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the man Avho has rescued these valuable facts from the ponderous folios Avhere they were slumbering in forgotten obscurity, and brought them into the broad light of philosophic observation and popular narrative. But, notwithstanding all this, Hume is far from being gifted with the philosophy of histor}'. He has collected or prepared man}- of the facts necessary for the science, but he has made little progress in it himself He was essentiall}'- a skeptic. He aimed rather at spreading doubts than shed- ding light. Like Voltaire and Gibbon, he was scandalously prejudiced and unjust on the subject of religion ; and to write modern his- tory without correct views on that subject, is like playing Hamlet without the character of the Prince of Denmark. He was too indolent to acquire the vast store of facts indispensable for correct generalization on the varied theatre of human aflairs, and often drew hasty and incorrect conclusions from the events which particularly came under his observation. Thus the repeated indecisive battles between the fleets of Charles II. and the Dutch, drew from him the observation, apparently justified by their results, that sea-fights are seldom so im- portant or decisive as those at land. The fact is just the reverse. Witness the battle of Sa- Jamis, which repelled from Europe the tide of Persian invasion; that of Aclium, which gave a master to the Roman world ; that of Sluys, which exposed France to the dreadful English invasions, t^egun under Edward III.; that of Lepanto, which rolled back from Christendom the wave of Mohammedan conquest ; the defeat of the Armada, which permanently established the Reformation in Northern Europe; that of La Hogue, which broke the maritime strength of Louis XIV.; that of Trafalgar, which for ever took "ships, colonies, and commerce" from Napoleon, and spread them with the British colonial empire over half the globe. Montesquieu owes his colossal reputation chiefly to his Esprit dcs Loix ; but the Urandcvr cl Decadence dcs Romains is by much the greater work. It has never attained neaily the repu- tation in this country which it deserves, either in consequence of the English mind being less partial than the French to the philosophy of human affairs, or, as is more probable, from the system of education at our universities being so exclusively devoted to the study of words, that our scholars seldom arrive at the knowledge of things. It is impossible to ima- gine a work in which the philosophy of his- tory is more ably condensed, or where there is exhibited, in a short space, a more profound view of the general causes to which the long- continued greatness and ultimate decline of that celebrated people were owing. It is to be re- gretted only that he did not come to modern times and other ages with the same masterly survey; the information collected in the Esprit des Loix would have furnished liim with ample materials for such a work. In that noble trea- tise, the same philosophic and generalizing spirit is conspicuous ; but there is too great a 24 love of system, an obvious partiality for fan^ ciful analogies, and, not unfrequently, conclu- sions hastily deduced from insufficient data. These errors, the natural result of a philoso- phic and profound mind wandering without a guide in the mighty maze of human transac- tions, are entirely avoided in the Grandeur el Decadence des Romains, where he was retained by authentic history to a known train of events, and where his imaginative spirit and marked turn for generalization found suffi- cient scope, and no more, to produce the most perfect commentary on the annals of a single people of which the human mind can boast. Bossuct, in his Universal History, aimed at a higher object; he professed to give nothing less than a development of the plan of Provi- dence, in the government of human affairs, during the whole of antiquity, and down to the reign of Charlemagne. The idea was magnificent, and the mental powers, as well as eloquence, of the Bishop of Meaux pro- mised the greatest results from such an under- taking. But the execution has by no means corresponded to the conception. Voltaire has said, that he professed to give a view of uni- versal history, and he has only given the his- tory of the Jews ; and there is too much truth in the observation. He never got out of the fetters of his ecclesiastical education ; the Jews were the centre round which he sup- posed all other nations revolved. His mind was polemical, not philosophic ; a great theo- logian, he was but an indifferent historian. In one particular, indeed, his observations are admiral)le, and, at times, in the highest degree impressive. He never loses sight of the di- vine superintendence of human affairs ; he sees in all the revolutions of empires the progress of a mighty plan for the ultimate redemption of mankind ; and he traces the workings of this superintending power in all the transactions of man. But it may be doubt- ed whether he took the correct view of this sublime but mysterious subject. He supposes the divine agency to influence directlij the af- fairs of men — not throui;h the medium of ge- neral laws, or the adajilation of our active pnipcnsiiios to the varying circumstances of our condition. Hence his views strike at the freedom of human actions; he makes men and nations little more than the puppets by which the Deity works out the great drama of human affairs. Without disputing the re- ality of such immediate agency in some par- ticular cases, it may safely be affirmed, that by far the greater part of the affairs of men are left entirely to their own guidance, and that tlii'ir actions are overruled, not directed by Almighty power to woik out the purposes of Divine beneficence. That which Bossuet left undnnc, Robertson did. The first volume of his Ciiarles V. may justly be regarded as the greatest step which the human mind hat! yet made in the philoso- phy of history. Extending his views beyond the admirable survey which Montesquieu had given of the rise and decline of tlie Roman empire, he aimed at giving a view of the pro- gress (if sociclij in modern limes. This matter 870 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. of the progress of society, was a favourite subject at that period with political philoso- phers; and by combining the speculations of these ingenious men with the solid basis of facts M-hich his erudition and industry had worked out, Robertson succeeded in produc- ing the most luminous, and at the same time just, view of the progress of nations that had yet been exhibited among mankind. The phi- losophy of history here appeared in its full lustre. Men and nations were exhibited in their just proportions. Society was viewed, not only in its details, but its masses ; the general causes which influence its progress, running into or mutually aftecting each other, and yet all conspiring with more or less etR- cacy to bring about a general result, were ex- hibited in the most lucid and masterly manner. The great causes which have contributed to form the elements of modern society — the de- caying civilization of Rome — the irruption of the northern nations — the prostration and de- gradation of the conquered people — the revival of the military spirit with the private Avars of the nobles — the feudal system and institution of chivalry — the crusades, and revival of let- ters following the capture of Constantinople by the Turks — the invention of printing, and consequent extension of knowledge to the great body of the people — the discovery of the compass, and, with it, of America, by Colum- bus, and doubling of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco de Gama — the invention of gunpow- der, and prodigious change thereby effected in the implements of human destruction — are all there treated in the most luminous manner, and, in general, with the justest discrimina- tion. The vast agency of general causes upon the progress of mankind now became appa- rent : unseen powers, like the deities of Homer in the war of Troy, were seen to mingle at every step with the tide of sublunary affairs ; and so powerful and irresistible does their agenc)', when once revealed, appear, that we are perhaps now likely to fall into the oppo- site extreme, and to ascribe too little to indi- vidual effort or character. Men and nations seem to be alike borne forward on the surface of a mighty stream, which they are equally in- capable of arresting or directing; and, after surveying the vain and impotent attempts of individuals to extricate themselves from the current, we are apt to exclaim with the philo- sopher,* "He has dashed with his oar to hasten the cataract ; he has Avaved with his fan to give speed to the winds." A nearer examination, however, will con- vince every candid inquirer, that individual character exercises, if not a paramount, yet a very powerful influence on human affairs. Whoever investigates minutely any period of history will find, on the one hand, that general causes affecting the whole of society are in constant operation; and on the other, that these general causes themselves are often set in motion, or directed in their effects, by par- ticular men. Thus, of what etficacy were the constancy of Pitt, the foresight of Burke, the ami of Nelson, the wisdom of Wellington, the ' Ferguson. genius of Wellesley, in bringing to maturity the British empire, and spreading the Anglo- Saxon race, in pursuance of its appointed mission, over half the globe ! What marvel- lous effect had the heroism and skill of Robert Bruce upon the subsequent history of Scot- land, and, through it, on the fortunes of the British race ! Thus biography, or the deeds or thoughts of illustrious men, still forms a most important, and certainly the most inte- resting, part even of general history ; and the perfection of that noble art consists, not in the exclusive delineation of individual achieve- ment, or the concentration of attention on ge- neral causes, but in the union of the two in due proportions, as they really exist in nature, and determine, by their combined operation the direction of human affairs. The talent now required in the historian partakes, ac- cordingly, of this two-fold character. He is expected to write at once philosophy and bio- graphy: to unite skill in drawing individual character, the power of describing individual achievements, with a clear perception of gene- ral causes, and the generalizing faculty of en- larged philosophy. He must combine in his mmd the powers of the microscope and the telescope ; be ready, like the steam-engine, at one time to twist a fibre, at another to prbpel an hundred-gun ship. Hence the rarity of eminence in this branch of knowledge ; and if we could conceive a Avriter who, to the ar- dent genius and descriptive powers of Gibbon, should unite the lucid glance and just discri- mination of Robertson, and the calm sense and reasoning powers of Hume, he would form a more perfect historian than ever has, or probably ever will appear upon earth. With all his generalizing powers, however, Robertson fell into one defect — or rather, he was unable, in one respect, to extricate him- self from the prejudices of his age and profes- sion. He was not a freethinker — on the con- trary, he was a sincere and pious divine ; but he lived in an age of freethinkers — they had the chief influence in the formation of a wri- ter's fame ; and he was too desirous of literary reputation to incur the hazard of ridicule or contempt, by assigning too prominent a place to the obnoxious topic. Thence he has as cribed far too little influence to Christianity, in restraining the ferocity of savage manners, preserving alive the remains of ancient know- ledge, and laying in general freedom the broad and deep foundations of European society. He has not overlooked these topics, but he has not given them their due place, nor assigned them their proper Aveight. He lived and died in comparative retirement; and he was never able to shake himself free from the prejudice.*; of his country and education, on the subject of Romish religion. Not that he exaggerated the abuses and enormities of the Roman Ca- tholic superstition which broiight about the Reformation, nor the vast benefits which Lu- ther conferred upon mankind by bringing them to light; both were so great, that they hardly admitted of exaggeration. His error — and, in the delineation of the progress of society in modern Europe, it was a very great one — con sisted in overlooking the beneficial effect of I GUIZOT. 371 ''lat very superstition, then so pernicious, in a lor age of the world, when violence was iini- ■Tsal, crime prevalent alike in high and low laces, and government impotent to check ihcr the t)'ranny of the great or the madness I the people. Then it was that superstition as the greatest blessing which Providence, in mercy, could bestow on mankind; for it ef- fected what the wisdom of the learned or the efforts of the active were alike unable to effect; it restrained the violence by imaginary, which was inaccessible to the force of real, terrors ; and spread that protection under the shadow of the Cross, which could never have been ob- tained by the power of the sword. Robertson was wholly insensible to these early and in- estimable blessings of the Christian faith ; he has admirably delineated the beneficial influ- ence of the Crusades upon subsequent societ)-, but on this all-important topic he is silent. Yet, whoever has studied the condition of European society in the ninth, tenth, and ele- venth centuries, as it has since been developed in the admirable works of Sismondi, Thierry, Michelet, and Guizot, must be aware that the services, not merely of Christianity, but of the superstitions which had usurped its place, were, during that long period, incalculable ; and that, but for them, European society would infallibly have sunk, as Asiatic in every age has done, beneath the desolating sword of bar- barian power. Sismondi — if the magnitude, and in many respects the merit, of his works be considered •^must be regarded as one of the greatest historians of modern times. His "History of the Italian Republics" in sixteen, of the "Mo- narchy of France" in thirty volumes, attest the variety and extent of his antiquarian rcsea rchcs, as well as the indefatigable industry of his pen: his "Literature of the South of Europe" in four, and "Miscellaneous Essays," in three volumes, show how happily he has blended these weighty investigations with the lighter topics of literature and poetry, and the politi- cal philosophy which, in recent times, has come to occupy so large a place in the study of all who have turned their mind to the pro- gress of human affairs. Nor is the least part of his merit to be found in the admirable skill with which he has condensed, each in two volumes, his great histories, for the benefit of that numerous class of readers, who unable or unwilling to face the formidabh; undertaking of going through his ma^^sy works, arc de- sirous of obtaining such a brief summary of their leading events as may sufiice for persons of ordinary perseverance or education. His mind was essentially philosophical ; and it is the philosophy of modern history, accordingly, which he has exerted himself so strenuously to unfold. He views society at a distanc**, and exhibits its great changes in their just propor- tions, and, in general, with their true effects. Hi^ success in this arduous undertaking has been great indeed. He has comjileied the pic- lure of which Robertson had only formed the •ketch — and completed it with such a prodigi- ous collection of materials, and so lucid an ar- rangement of them in their appropriate places, as to have left future ages little to do but draw the just conclusions from the results of his labours. With all these merits, and they are great, and with this rare combination of antiquarian industry with philosophic generalization, Sis- mondi is far from being a perfect historian. He did well to abridge his great works ; for he will find few readers who will have persever- ance enough to go through them. An abridg- ment was tried of Gibbon; but it had little success, and has never since been attempted. You might as well publish an abridgment of Waverley or Ivanhoe. Every reader of the Decline and Fall must feel that condensation is impossible, without an omission of interest or a curtailment of beauty. Sismondi, with all his admirable qualiti€s as a general and philo- sophic historian, wants the one thing needful in exciting interest — descriptive and dramatic power. He was a man of great vigour of thought and clearness of observation, but little genius — at least of that kind of genius which is necessary to move the feelings or warm the imagination. That was his principal defect ; and it will prevent his great works from ever commanding the attention of a numerous body of general readers, however much they may be esteemed by the learned and studious. Conscious of this deficiency, he makes scarce any attempt to make his narrative interesting; but, reserving his whole strength for general views on the progress of society, or philo- sophic observations on its most important changes, he fills up the intermediate space with long quotations from chronicles, me- moirs, and state papers — a sure way, if the selection is not made with great judgment, of rendering the whole insupportably tedious. Every narrative, to be interesting, should be given in the writer's own wi.rds, unless on those occasions, by no means frequent, when some striking or remarkable expressions of a speak- er, or contemporary writer, are to be preserved. Unity of style and expression is as indispen- sable in a history which is (o move tlie heart, or fascinate the imagination, as in a tragedy, a painting, or an epic poem. But, in addition to this, Sismondi's general views, though ordinarily just, and always ex- pressed with clearness and precision, are not always to be taken without examination. Like Robertson, he was never able to extricate him- self entirely from the early prejudices Oi" his country and education; hardly any of the Ge- neva school of philosophers have been able to do so. Brought up in that learned and able, l)ut narrow, and in some respects bigoted com- munity, he was early engaged in the vast underiaking of the History of the Italian Re- publics. -Thus, before he was well aware of it, and at a time of life, when the opinions are flexible, and easily moulded by external im- pressions, he became irrevocably enamoured of such little communities as he had lived in, or was describing, and imbibed all the preju dices against the Church of Rome, which have naturally, from close proximity, and the en- durance of unutterable evils at its hands, been ever prevalent among the Calvinists of (ie- neva. These causes have tinged his otherwise impartial views with two signal prejudices^ 878 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. which appear in all his -writings where these subjects are even remotely alluded to. His partiality for municipal institutions, and the social system depending on them, is as extra- vagant, as his aversion to the Church of Rome is conspicuous and intemperate. His idea of a perfect society would be a confederacy of little republics, governed by popularly elected magistrates, holding the scarlet old lady of Rome in utter abomination, and governed in matters of religion by the Presbyterian forms, and the tenets of Calvin. It is not to be wondered at, that the annalist of the coun- tries of Tasso and Dante, of Titian and Ma- .chiavel, of Petrarch and Leonardo da Vinci, of Galileo and Michael Angelo, should con- ceive, that in no other state of society is such scope afforded for mental cultivation and the development of the highest efforts of genius. Still less is it surprising, that the historian of the crusades against the Albigenses, of the un- heard of atrocities of Simon de_ Montfort, of the wholesale massacres, burnings, and tortur- ings, which have brought such indelible dis- grace on the Roman priesthood, should feel deeply interested in a faith which has extri- cated his own country from the abominable persecution. But still, this indulgence of these natural, and in some respects praiseworthy, feelings, has blinded Sismondi to the insur- mountable evils of a confederacy of small republics at this time, amidst surrounding, powerful, and monarchical states; and to the inappreciable blessings of the Christian faith, and even of the Romish superstition, before the period when these infamous cruelties be- gan, when their warfai-e v/as only with the op- pressor, their struggles with the destroyers of the human race. But truth is great, and will prevail. Those just views of modern society, which neither the luminous eye of Robertson, nor the learned research and philosophic mind of Sismondi could reach, have been brought forward by a writer of surpassing ability, whose fame as an historian and a philosopher is for the time overshadowed by the more fleeting celebrity of the statesman and the politician. We will not speak of M. Guizot in the latter character, much as we are tempted to do so, by the high and honourable part which he has long borne iia European diplomacy, and the signal ability with which, in the midst of a short-sighted and rebellious generation, clamouring, as the Ro- mans of old, for the vndlis utile bdlum, he has sustained his sovereign's wise and magnani- mous resolution to maintain peace. We are too near the time to appreciate the magnitude of these blessings; men would not now be- lieve through what a crisis the British empire, unconscious of its danger, passed, when M. Thiers was dismissed, three years and a half ago, by Louis Philippe, and M. Guizot called to the helm. But when the time arrives, as arrive it will, that the diplomatic secrets of that period are brought to light; when the instruc- tions of the revolutionary minister to the ad- miral of the Toulon fleet are made known, and the marvellous chance which prevented their being acted upon by him, has become matter of history ; it will be admitted, that tine civilized world have good cause to thank M. Guizot fof saving it from a contest as vehement, as perilousj and probably as disastrous to all concerned, as that which followed the French Revolution. Our present business is with M. Guizot as an historian and a philosopher; a character iu which he will be remembered, long after his services to humanity as a statesman and a minister have ceased to attract the attention of men. In those respects, we place him in the very highest rank among the writers of modern Europe. It must be understood, how- ever, in what his greatness consists, lest the readers, expecting what they will not find, ex- perience disappointment, when they begin the study of his works. He is neither imaginative nor pictorial; he seldom aims at the pathetic, and has little eloquence. He is not a Livy nor a Gibbon. Nature has not given him either dramatic or descriptive powers. He is a man of the highest genius; but it consists not in narrating particular events, or describing in- dividual achievement. It is in the discovery of general causes; in tracing the operation of changes in society, which escape ordinary observation ; in seeing whence man has come, and whither he is going, that his greatness consists ; and in that loftiest of the regions of history, he is unrivalled. We know of no author who has traced the changes of society, and the general causes which de- termine the fate of nations, with such just views and so much sagacious discrimination. He is not, properly speaking, an historian ; his vocation and object were different. He is a great discourser on history. If ever the philo- sophy of history was imbodied in a human being, it is in M. Guizot. The style of this great author is, in every respect, suited to his subject. He does not aim at the highest flights of fancy; makes no attempt to warm the soul or melt the feelings; is seldom imaginative, and never descriptive. But he is uniformly lucid, sagacious, and dis- criminating ; deduces his conclusions with admirable clearness from his premises, and occasionally warms from the innate grandeur of his subject into a glow of fervent eloquence. He seems to treat of human affairs, as if he viewed them from a loftier sphere than other men; as if he were elevated above the usual struggles and contests of humanity; and a su- perior power had withdrawn the veil which shrouds their secret causes and course from the gaze of sublunary beings.' He cares not to dive into the secrets of cabinets ; attaches little, perhaps too little, importance to indivi- dual character; but fixes his steady gaze on the great and lasting causes which, in a dur- able manner, influence human affairs. He views them not from year to year but from century to century; and, when considered in that view, it is astonishing how much the importance of individual agency disappears. Important in their generation — sometimes al- most omnipotent for good or for evil while they live — particular men, how great soever, rarelj' leave an}' very important consequences behind them; or at least rarely do what other men might not have done as effectually as them, and whi.ch was not already determined GUIZOT. 373 by the tendency of the human mind, and the tide, either of flow or ebb, by whicli human affiiirs were at the time wafted to and fro. The desperate struggles of war or of ambition in which they were engaged, and in which so much genius and capacity were exerted, are swept over by the flood of time, and seldom leave any lasting trace behind. It is the men who determine the direction of this tide, who imprint their character on general thought, who are the real directors of human affairs; it is the giants of thought who, in the end, go- vern the world. Kings and ministers, princes and generals, warriors and legislators, are but the ministers of their blessings or their curses to mankind. But their dominion seldom begins till themselves are mouldering in their graves. Guizot's largest work, in point of size, is his translation of Gibbons Borne; and the just and philosophic spirit in which he viewed the course of human affairs, was admirably cal- culated to provide an antidote to the skeptical sneers which, in a writer of such genius and strength of understanding, are at once the marvel and the disgrace of that immortal work. He has begun also a history of the English Revolution, to which he was led by having been the editor of a valuable collec- tion of Memoirs relating to the great Rebellion, translated into French, in twenty-five volumes. But this work only got the length of two vo- lumes, and came no further down than the death of Charles I., an epoch no further on in the English than the execution of Louis in the French Revolution. This history is clear, lUcid, and valuable ; but it is written with little eloquence, and has met with no great success : the author's powers were not of the dramatic or pictorial kind necessary to paint that dreadful storj'. These were editorial or industrial labours unworthy of Guizot's mind; it was when he delivered lectures from the chair of history in Paris, that his genius shone forth in its proper sphere and its true lustre. His Civilisation en France, in five volumes, Civilisation Europecnne, and Essais sitr VHisloirc de France, each in one volume, are the fruits of these professional labours. The same pro- found thought, sagacious discrimination, and lucid view, are conspicuous in them all ; but they possess different degrees of interest to the English reader. The Civilisation en France is the groundwork of the whole, and it enters at large into the whole details, historical, legal, and antiquarian, essential for its illustration, and the proof of the various propositions which it contains. In the Civilisation Euro- ])eennc and Essays on the History of France, how- ever, the general results are given with equal clearness and greater brevity. We do not hesitate to say, that ihev appear to us to throw more light on the histoi/ of society in modern Europe, and the general progress of mankind, from the exertions of its inhahitants, than any other works in existence; and it is of them, especially the first, that we propose to give our readers some account. The most important event which ever oc- curred in the history of mankind, is the one concerning which contemporary writers have given us the least satisfactory accounts. Be- yond all doubt the overthrow of Rome by tha Goths was the most momentous catastrophe which has occurred on the earth since the de. luge ; yet, if we examine either the historians of antiquity or the earliest of modern times, we find it wholly impossible to understand to what cause so great a catastrophe had been owing. What gave, in the third and fourth centuries, so prodigious an impulse to the northern nations, and enabled them, after be- ing so long repelled by the arms of Rome, finally to prevail over iti What, still more, so completely paralyzed the strength of the empire during that period, and produced that astonishing weakness in the ancient conque- rors of the world, which rendered them the easy prey of those whom they had so often subdued 1 The ancient writers content them- selves with saying, that the people became corrupted ; that they lost their military cou- rage ; that the recruiting of the legions, in the free inhabitants of the empire, became im- possible; and that the semi-barbarous tribes on the frontier could not be relied on to up- hold its fortiTues. But a very little reflection must be sufficient to show that there must have been much more in it than this, before a race of conquerors was converted into one of slaves ; before the legions fled before the bar- barians, and the strength of the civilized was overthrown by the energy of the savage world. For what prevented a revenue from being raised in the third or fourth, as well as the first or second centuries 1 Corruption in its worst form had doubtless pervaded the higher ranks in Rome from the emperor downward; but these vices are the faults of the exalted and the affluent only; they never have, and never will, extend generally to the great body of the community; for this plain reason, that they are not rich enough to purchase them. But the remarkable thing is, that in the decline of the em])irc, it was in the lower ranks that the greatest and most fatal weakness first ap- peared. Long before the race of the Patri- cians had become extinct, the free cultivators had disappeared from the fields. Leaders and generals of the most consummate abilities, of the greatest daring, frequently arose; hut their eflorts proved in the end inellcctual, from the impossibility of finding a sturdy race of fol- lowers to fill their ranks. The legionary Italian soldier was awanting — his place was imper- fectly supplied by the rude Dacian, the hardy German, the faithless Goth. So completely were the inhaliitants of the provinces M'ithin the Rhine and the Danube paralyzed, that they ceased to make any resistance to the hordes of invaders; and the fortunes of the empire were, for several generations, sustained solely by the heroic efforts of individual leaders — Belisarius, Narses, Julian, Aurelian, Constan- tino, and many others — whose renown, though it could not rouse the pacific inhabitants to Avarlike efforts, yet attracted militar}' adven turers from all parts of the world to theii standard. Now, what weakened and destroyed the rural population 1 It could not be luxury on the contrary, they were sufi^ering under excess of poverty, and bent down beneath a load of taxes, which, in Gaul, in the time of 874 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. Constantine, amounted, as Gibbon tells us, to nine pounds sterling on every freeman 1 What was it, then, which occasioned the depopula- tion and weakness 1 This is what behoves us to know — this it is which ancient history has left unknown. It is here that Vhe vast step in the philosophy of history made from ancient to modern times is apparent. From a few detached hints and insulated facts, left by the ancient annalists, apparently ignorant of their value, and care- less of their preservation, modern industry, guided by the light of philosophy, has reared up the true solution of the difficulty, and re- vealed the real causes, hidden from the ordi- nary gaze, which, even in the midst of its greatest prosperity, gradually, but certainly, undermined the strength of the empire. Miche- let, in his Gaule sous Ics Bomains, a most able and interesting work — Thierry, in his Domina- tion Romaine en Gaulc, and his Histoirc des liois Merovingians — Sismondi, in the three first vo- lumes of his Histoire des Fran^ais — and Guizot, in his Civilisation Europecnnc, and the first vo- lumes of his Essais sur VHistoire de France — have applied their great powers to this most in- teresting subject. It may safely be affirmed that they have got to the bottom of the subject, and lifted up the veil from one of the darkest, and yet most momentous, changes in the histor}'' of mankind. Guizot gives the following account of the principal causes which silently under- mined the strength of the empire, flowing from the peculiar organization of ancient society: — "When Rome extended, what did it do? Follow its history, and you will find that it was everlastingly engaged in conquering or founding cities. It was with cities that it fought — with cities that it contracted — into cities that it sent colonies. The history of the conquest of the world by Rome, is nothing but the history of the conquest and foundation of a great number of cities. In the east, the expansion of the Roman power assumed, from the very outset, a somewhat dissimilar cha- racter; the population was differently distri- buted from the west, and much less concen- trated in cities; but in the European world, the foundation or conquest of towns was the uniform result of Roman conquest. In Gaul and Spain, in Italy, it was constantly towns which opposed the barrier to Roman domi- nation, and towns which were founded or garrisoned by the legions, or strengthened by colonies, to retain them when vanquished in a state of subjection. Great roads stretched from one town to another ; the multitude of cross roads which now hitersect each other in every direction, was unknown. They had no- thing in common with that multitude of little monuments, villages, churches, castles, villas, and cottages, which now cover our provinces'. Rome has bequeathed to us nothing, either in Its capital or its provinces, but the municipal character, which produced immense monuments on certain points, destined for the use of the vast population which was there assembled vogether. " From this peculiar conformation of society in Europe, under the Roman dominion, con- sisting of a vast conglomeration of cities, with each a dependent territoiy, all independent of each other, arose the absolute necessity for a central and absolute government. One muni c.ipality in Rome might conquer the world but to retain it in subjection, and provide fol the government of all its multifarious parts, was a very different matter. This was one of the chief causes of the general adoption of a strong concentrated government under the em pire. Such a centralized despotism not only succeeded in restraining and regulating all the incoherent members of the vast dominion, but the idea of a central irresistible authority in- sinuated itself into men's minds everywhere, at the same time, with wonderful facility. At first sight, one is astonished to see, in that prodigious and ill-united aggregate of little republics, in that accumulation of separate municipalities, spring up so suddenly an un- bounded respect for the sacred authority of the empire. But the truth is, it had become a matter of absolute necessity, that the bond which held together the difi'erent parts of this heterogeneous dominion should be very power- ful; and this it was which gave it so ready a reception in the minds of men. " I3ut when the vigour of the central power declined during a course of ages, from the pres- sure of external warfare, and the weakness of internal corruption, this necessity was no longer felt. The capital ceased to be able to provide for the provinces ; it rather sought pro- tection from them. During four centuries, the central power of the emperors incessantly struggled against this increasing debility; but the moment at length arrived, when all the practised skill of despotism, over the long t«- souciance of servitude, could no longer keep together the huge and unwieldy body. In the fourth century, we see it at once break up and disunite; the barbarians entered on all sides from Avithout, the provinces ceased to oppose any resistance from within ; the cities to evince anj'^ regard for the general welfare ; and, as in the disaster of a shipwreck, every one looked out for his individual safety. Thus, on Xhe dissolution of the empire, the same general state of society presented itself as in its cradle. The imperial authority sunk into the dust, and municipal institutions alone sun'ived the dis- aster. This, then, was the chief legacy which the ancient bequeathed to the modern world — for it alone survived the storm by w^hich the former had been destroyed — cities and a mu- nicipal organization everywhere established- But it was not the only legacy. Beside it, there was the recollection at least of the awful ma jesty of the emperor — of a distant, unseen, but sacred and irresistible power. These are the two ideas which antiquity bequeathed to mo- dern times. On the one hand, the municipal regime, its rules, customs, and principles of liberty: on the other, a common, general, civil legislation ; and the idea of absolute power, of a sacred majesty, the principle of order and servitude." — Civilisatio7i Evropecjinc, 20, 23. The causes M'hich produced the extraordi- nary, and at first sight unaccountable, depopu- lation of the country districts, not only in Italy, but in Gaul, Spain, and all the European pro- vinces of the Roman empire, are explained by GUIZOT. 376 Guizot in his Fsitaijs on the History of France, and have been fully demonstrated by Sismondi, Thierry, and Michelet. They were a natural consequence of the municipal system, then universally established as the very basis of civilization in the whole Roman empire, and may be seen urging, from a similar cause, the Turkish empire to dissolution at this day. This was the imposition of a certain fixed duty, as a burden on each municipality, to be raised, indeed, by its own members, but admit- ting of no diminution, save under the most special circumstances, and on an express ex- emption by the emperor. Had the great bulk cf the people been free, and the empire pros- perous, this fixity of impost would have been the greatest of ail blessings. It is the precise boon so frequently and earnestly implored by our r)'ots in India, and indeed by the cultiva- tors all over the east. Bui when the empire was beset on all sides with enemies — only the more rapacious and pressing, that the might of the legions had so long confined them within (he comparatively narrow limits of their own sterile territories — and disasters, frequent and serious, were laying waste the frontier pro- vinces, it became the most dreadful of all scourges; because, as the assessment on each district was fixed, and scarcely ever suffered any abatement, every disaster experienced increased the burden on the survivors who had escaped it; until they became bent down under such a weight of taxation, as, coupled with the small number of freemen on whom it exclusively fell, crushed every attempt at pro- ductive industry. It was the same thing as if all the farmers on each estate M-ere to be bound to make up, annually, the same amount of rent to their landlord, no matter how many of them had become insolvent. We know how long the agriculture of Britain, in a period of de- clining prices and frequent disaster, would exist under such a system. Add to this the necessary effect which the free circulation of grain throughout the whole Roman world had in depressing the agricul- ture of Ital)', Gaul, and Greece. They were unable to withstand the competition of Egypt, Lybia, and Sicily — the store-houses of tlic world; where the benignity of the climate, and the riches of the soil, rewarded seventy or an hundred-fold the labours of the husbandman. Gaul, where the increase was only seven-l'old • — Italy, where it seldom exceeded twelve — Spain, where it was never so high, were crushed in the struggle. The mistress of the world, as Tacitus bewails, had come to depend for her subsistence on the floods of the Nile. Unable to compete with the cheap grain raised in the more favoured regions of the south, the cultivators of Italy and Gaul gradually retired from the contest. They devoted their exten- sive estates to pasturage, because live cattle or dairy produce could not bear the expense of being shipped from Africa; and the race of agriculturists, the strength of the legions, dis- appeared in the fields, and was lost in the needy and indolent crowd of urban citizens, in part maintained hy tributes in corn brought from E'_'ypt and Lybia. This augmented the burdens upon those who remained in the rural districts ; for, as the taxes of each municipalitj remained the same, every one that withdrew into the towns left an additional burden on the shoulders of his brethren who remained behind- So powerful was the operation of these two causes — the fixity in the state burdens payable by each municipality, and the constantly de- clining prices, owing to the vast import from agricultural regions more favoured by nature — that it fully equalled the effect of the ravages of the barbarians in the frontier provinces exposed to their incursions^ and the depopula- tion of the rural districts was as complete in Italy and Gaul, before a barbarian had passed the Alps or set his foot across the Ehine, as in the plains between the Alps or the Adriatic and the Danube, which had for long been ravaged by their arms. Domestic slavery conspired with these evils to prevent the healing power of nature from closing these yawning wounds. Gibbon esti- mates the number of slaves throughout the empire, in its latter days, at a number equal to that of the freemen ; in other words, one half of the whole inhabitants were in a state of servitude;* and as there were 120,000,000 souls under the Roman sway, sixty millions were in that degraded condition. There is reason to believe that the number of slaves was still greater than this estimate, and at least double that of the freemen; for it is known by an authentic enumeration, that, in the time of the Emperor Claudius, the number of citizens in the empire was only 6,945,000 men, who, with their families, might amount to twenty millions of souls ; and the total number of freemen was about double that of the citizens.f In one family alone, in the time of Pliny, there were 4116 slaves.:!: But take the number of slaves according to Gibbon's computation, at only half the entire population, what a prodigious abstraction must this multitude of slaves have made from the physical and moral strength of the empire! Half the people requiring food, needing restraint, incapable of trust, and j'et adding nothing to the muster-rol! of the legions, or the persons by whom the fixed and immov- able annual taxes were to be made good! In what state would the British empire now be, if we were subjected to the action of similar causes of ruin] A vast and unwieldy domi- nion, exposed on every side to the incursions of barbarous and hostile nations, daily increas- ing in numbers, and augmenting in military skill ; a fixed taxation, for which the whole free inhabitants of every municipality were jointly and severally responsible, to meet the increasing military establishment ref|.iin'd by these perils; a declining, and at length extinct, agriculture in the central provinces of the em- pire, owing to the deluge of cheap grain from its fertiTc extremities Avafted over the waters of the Mediterranean; multitudes of turbulent freemen in cities, kept quiet by daily distribu- tion of provisions at the public expeiv e, from the imperial granaries; and a half, or two- thirds of the whole population in a state of slavcrv — neither bearing any share of the pub- lic burdens, nor adding to the strength of th< * Gibbon. + Ibid. % Plin. Hist. Nat. x.xxlii. 47 ano ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. military array of the empire. Such are the discoveries of modern philosophy, as to the causes of the decline and ultimate fall of the Roman empire, gleaned from a few facts, acci- dentally preserved by the ancient writers, ap- parently unconscious of their value ! It is a noble science which, in so short a time, has presented such a gift to mankind. Guizot has announced, and ably illustrated, a great truth, which, when traced to its legiti- mate consequences, will be found to go far towards dispelling many of the pernicious in- novating dogmas which have so long been afloat in the world. It is this, that whenever an institution, though apparently pernicious in our eyes, has long existed, and under a great variety of circumstances, we may rest assured that it in reality has been attended with some advantages which counterbalance its evils, and that upon the M-hole it is beneficial in its tendency. This important principle is thus stated : — " Independent of the efforts of man, there is established 1 v a law of providence, which it is impossible to mistake, and which is analogous to what we witness in the natural world, a certain measure of order, reason, and justice, without which society cannot exist. From the single fact of its endurance we may conclude, with certainty, that a society is not completely absurd, insensate, or iniquitous; that it is not destitute of the elements of reason, truth, and justice — which alone can give life to society. If the more that society developes itself, the stronger does this principle become — if it is daily accepted by a greater number of men, it is a certain proof that in the lapse of time there has been progressively introduced into it more reason, more justice, more right. It is thus that the idea of political legitimacy lias arisen. "This principle has for its foundation, in the first instance, at least in a certain degree, the great principles of moral legitimacy — justice, reason, truth. Then came the sanction of time, which always begets the presumption of reason having directed arrangements which have long endured. In the early periods of society, we too often find force and falsehood ruling the cradles of royalty, aristocracy, de- mocracy, and even the church; but every where you will see this force and falsehood yielding to the reforming hand of time, and right and truth taking their place in the rulers of civilization. It is this progressive infusion of right and_ truth which has by degrees de- veloped the idea of political legitimacy ; it is thus that it has become established in modern civilization. At diflbrent times, indeed, at- tempts have been made to substitute for this idea the banner of despotic power; but, in doing so, they have turned it aside from its true origin. It is so little the banner of des- potic power, that it is in the name of right and justice that it has overspread the world. As little is it exclusive: it belongs neither to persons, classes, nor sects; it arises M^ierever the idea of right has developed itself. We shall meet with this principle in systems the mosc opposite : in the feudal system, in the municipalities of Flanders and Germany, in the republics of Italy, as well as in simple monarchies. It is a character diffused through the various elements of modern civilization, and the perception of which is indispensable to the right understanding of its history."^ Lecture in. 9, 11; Civilisalion Etiropecnne. No principle ever was announced of more practical importance in legislating for man- kind, than is contained in this passage. The doctrine is somewhat obscurely stated, and not with the precision which in general dis- tinguishes the French writers; but the import of it seems to be this — That no system of go- vernment can long exist among men, unless it is substantially, and in the majority of cases, founded in reason and justice, and sanctioned by experienced utility for the people among whom it exists ; and therefore, that we may predicate with perfect certainty of any institu- tion which has been generally extended and long established, that it has been upon the whole beneficial, and should be modified or altered with a very cautious hand. That this proposition is true, will probably be disputed by none M^ho have thought much and •dis- passionately on human affairs ; for all human institutions are formed and supported by men, and unless men had some reason for support- ing them, they would speedily sink to the ground. It is in vain to say a privileged class have got possession of the power, and they make use of it to perpetuate these abuses'. Doubtless, they are always sufficiently inclined to do s.o ; but a privileged class, or a despot, is always a mere handful against the great body of the people; and unless their power is sujj- ported by the force of general opinion, founded on experienced utility upon the whole, it could not maintain its ground a single vfeek. And this explains a fact observed by an able and ingenious writer of the present day,* that if almost all the great convulsions recorded in history are attentively considered, it will be found, that after a brief period of strenuous, and often almost super-human effort, on the part of the people, they have terminated in the establishment of a government and institutions differing scarcely, except in name, from that which had preceded the struggle. It is hardly necessary to remark how striking a confirma- tion the English revolution of 1688, and the' French of 1830, afibrd of this truth. And this explains what is the trae meaning of, and solid foundation for, that reverence for antiquity which is so strongly implanted in hu- man nature, and is never forgotten for any con- siderable time without inducing the most dread- ful disasters upon society. It means that those institutions which have descended to us in actual practice from our ancestors, come sanctioncj by the experience of ages ; and that they could not have stood so long a test unless 'hey had been recommended, in some degree at least, by their utility. It is not that our ancestors were wiser than we are ; they were certainly less informed, and probably were, ca that ac- count, in the general case, less judicious. But time has swept away their follies, which were doubtless great enough, as it has done the * Mr. James's Preface to Mary o/ Burgundy. GUIZOT. 377 worthless ephemeral literature with which they, as M-e, were overwhelmed; and nothing has stood tha test of ages, and come down to us through a series of generations, of their ideas or institutions, but what had some utility in human feelings and necessities, and was on the whole expedient at the time when it arose. Its utility may have ceased by the change of manners or of the circumstances of society — that may be a good reason for cautiously modifying or altering it — but rely upon it, it was once useful, if it has existed long; and the presumption of present and continuing utility requires to be strongly outweighed by forcible considerations before it is abandoned. Lord Bacon has told us, in words which can never become trite, so profound is their wis- dom, that our changes, to be beneficial, should resemble those of time, which, though the greatest of all innovators, works out its altera- tions so gradually that they are never per- ceived. Guizot makes, in the same spirit, the following fine observation on the slow march of Supreme wisdom in the government of the world: — " If we turn our eyes to history, we shall find that all the great developments of the hn- man mind have turned to the advantage of society -all the great struggles of humanity to the good of mankind. It is not, indeed, im- mediately that these eflTorts take place ; ages often elapse, a thousand obstacles intervene, before they are fully developed; but when we survey a long course of ages, we see that all has been accomplished. The march of Provi- dence is not subjected to narrow limits ; it cares not to develope to-day the consequences of a principle which it has established yester- day; it will bring them forth in ages, when the appointed hour has arrived ; and its course is not the less sure that it is slow. The throne of the Almighty rests on time — it marches through its boundless expanse as the gods of Homer through space — it makes a step, and ages have passed away. How many centuries elapsed, now many changes ensued, before the regenera- tion of the innerman,by means of Christianity, exercised on the social state its great and salutary influence ! Nevertheless, it has at length succeeded. No one can mistake its effects at this time." — Lcrlnrc i. 24, In surveying tlie progress of civilization in modern, as compared with ancient limes, uvo features stand prominent as distinguishing the one from the other. These are the c/iwrr/j and the/cniliil nynlcm. They were precisely the cir- cumstances which gave umbrage to the phi- losophers of the cightfcnth century, and which awakened ihc greatest transports of indigna- tion among the ardent multitudes who, at its close, brought about the French Revolution. Very different is the light iff which the eye of true philosophy, enlightfned by the experi- ence of their aholitifm, views these great dis- tinctive features of modern society. " Immenst'," says Guizot, "was the influence which the Christian church exercised over the civilization of modern Europe. In the outset, it was an incalculable advantage to have a moral power, a power destitute of physical force, which reposed only on menial convic- tions and moral feelings, established amids' that deluge of physical force and selfish vio* lence which overwhelmed society at that pe riod. Had the Christian church not existedj the world would have been delivered over to the influence of physical strength, in its coarsest and mo*.t revolting form. It alone exercised a moral power. It did more; it spread abroad the idea of a rule of obedience, a heavenly power, to which all human beings, how great soever, were subjected, and which was above all human laws. That of itself was a safeguard against the greatest evils of society; for it affected the minds of those by whom they were brought about; it professed that be- lief — the foundation of the salvation of hu- manity — that there is above all existing insti- tutions, superior to all human laws, a penna- nent and divine law, sometimes called Reason, sometimes Divine Command, but Avhich, under whatever name it goes, is for ever the same. " Then the church commenced a great work — the separation of the spiritual and temporal power. That separation is the origin of li- berty of conscience ; it rests on no other prin- ciple than that which lies at the bottom of the widest and most extended toleration. The se- paration of the spiritual and temporal power rests on the principle, that physical force is neither entitled to act, nor can ever have any lasting influence, on thoughts, conviction, truth ; it flows from the eternal distinction between the world of thought and the world of action, the world of interior conviction and that of external facts. In truth that principle of the liberty of conscience, for which Europe has combated and suffered so much, which has so slowly triumphed, and often against the ut- most efforts of the clergy themselves, was first founded by the doctrine of the separation of the temporal and spiritual power, in the cradle of European civilization. It is the Christian church which, by the necessities of its situa- tion to defend itself against the assaults of bar- barism, introduced and maintained it. The presence of a moral influence, the mainte- nance of a Divine law, the separation of the temporal and spiritual power, are the three great blessings which the Christian church has diffused in the dark ages over European so- ciety. " The influence of the Christian church was great and beneficent for another reason. The bishop and clergy ere long became the princi- pal municipal magistrates: they were ihe chancellors and ministersof kings — the rulers, except in the camp and the field, of mankind. When the Roman empire crumbled into dust, when the central power of the emperors and the legions disappeared, there remained, we have seen, no other authority in the state but the municipal functionaries. Hut ihey them selves had fallen into a state of apathy and despair; the heavy burdens of despotism, the oppressive taxes of the municipalities, the m- cursions of the fierce barbarians, had reduced them to despair. No proiection to society, no revival of industry, no shiebling of innocence, could be expected from their exertions. The clergy, again, formed a society within itself*, fresh, young, vigorous, sheltered by the pre 878 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. railing faith, which speedily drew to itself all the learning and intellectual strength that re- mained in the state. The bishops and priests, full of life and of zeal, naturallywere recurred to in order to fill all civil situations requiring thought or information. It is wrong to re- proach their exercise of these powers as an usurpation ; they alone were capable of exer- cising them. Thug has the natural course of things prescribed for all ages and countries. The clergy alone were mentally strong and morally zealous : they became all-powerful. It is the law of the universe." — Lecture iii. 27 31 ; Civilisation Europecnne, Nothing can be more just or important than these observations ; and they throw a new and consoling light on the progress and ultimate destiny of European society. They are as original as they are momentous. Robertson, with his honest horror of the innumerable cor- ruptions which, in the time of Leo X. and Lu- thei", brought about the Reformation — Sismon- di, with his natural detestation of a faith which had urged on the dreadful cruelties of the cru- gade of the Albigenses, and which produced the revocation of the edict of Nantes — have alike overlooked those important truths, so es- sential to a right understanding of the history of modern society. They saw that the arro- gance and cruelty of the Roman clergy had produced innumerable evils in later times ; chat their venality in regard to indulgences and abuse of absolution had brought religion itself into discredit; that the absurd and in- credible tenets which they still attempted to force on mankind, had gone far to alienate the intellectual strength of modern Europe, during the last century, from their support. Seeing this, they condemned it absolutely, for all times and in all places. They fell into the usual error of men in reasoning on former from their own times. They could not make " the past and the future predominate over the present." They felt the absurdity of many of the legends which the devout Catholics received as un- doubted truths, and they saw no use in per- petuating the belief in them; and thence they conceived that they must always have been equally unserviceable, forgetting that the eigh- teenth was not the eighth century; and that, during the dark ages, violence would have rioted without control, if, when reason was in abeyance, knowledge scanty, and military strength alone in estimation, superstition had not thrown its unseen fetters over the bar- barian's arms. They saw that the Romish clergy, during five centuries, had laboured strenuously, and often with the most frightful cruelty, to crush independence of thought in matters of faith, and chain the human mind to the tenets, often absurd and erroneous, of her Papal creed; and they forgot that, during five preceding centuries, the Christian church had laboured as assiduously to establish the inde- pendence of thought from physical coercion, and had alone kept alive, during the interreg- num of reason, the sparks of knowledge and the principles of freedom. ^ In the same liberal and enlightened spirit Guizot views the feudal system, the next grand characteristic of modem times. "A decisive proof that, in the tenth centurjr, the feudal system had become necessa-ry, and was, in truth, the only social slate possible, is 10 be found in the universality of its adoption Universally, upon the cessation of barbarism, the feudal forms were adopted. At the first moment of barbarian conquest, men saw only the triumph of chaos. All unit)', all general civilization disappeared; on all sides Avas seen society falling into dissolution ; and, in its stead, arising a multitude of little, obscure, isolated communities. This appeared to all the contemporaries nothing short of universal anarchy. The poets, the chroniclers of the time, viewed it as the approach of the end of the world. It was, in truth, the end of the ancient world; but the commencement of a new one, placed on a broad basis, and with large means of social improvement and indi- vidual happiness. " Then it was that the feudal system became necessary, inevitable. It was the only possi- ble means of emerging from the general chaos. The whole of Europe, accordingly, at the same time adopted it. Even those portions of so- ciety which were most strangers, apparently, to that system, entered warmly into its spirit, and were fain to share in its protection. The crown, the church, the communities, were con- strained to accommodate themselves to it. The churches became suzerain or vassal ; the burghs had their lords and their feuars; the monasteries and abbeys had their feudal re- tainers, as well as the temporal barons. Roy- alty itself was disguised under the name of a feudal superior. Every thing was given in fief; not only lands, but certain rights flowing from them, as that of cutting wood, fisheries, or the like. The church made subinfeuda- tions of their casual revenues, as the dues on marriages, funerals, and baptisms." The establishment of the feudal system thus universally in Europe, produced one efiect, the importance of which can hardly be exaggerated. Hitherto the mass of mankind had been collected under the municipal insti- tutions which had been universal in antiquity, in cities, or wandered in vagabond hordes through the country. Under the feudal s)'stem these men lived isolated, each in his own ha- bitation, at a great distance from each other. A glance will show that this single circum- stance must have exercised on the character of society, and the course of civilization, the social preponderance ; the government of society passed at once from the towns to the country — private took the lead of public pio- perty — private prevailed over public life. Such was the first effect, and it was an eflect purely material, of the establishment of the feudal system. But other effects, still more material, followed, of a moral kind, which have exer- cised the most important effects on the Eu- ropean manners and mind. " The feudal proprietor established himself in an isolated place, which, for his om'u pro- tection, he rendered secure. He lived there, with his wife, his children, and a few faithful friends, who shared his hospitality, and con- tributed to his defence. Around the castle, in its vicinity, were established the farmers and GUIZOT. 379 serfs who cultivated his domain. In the midst of that inferior, but yet allied and protected population, religion planted a church, and in- troduced a priest. He was usually the chap- Iain of the castle, and at the same time the curate of the village ; in subsequent ages these two characters were separated ; the village pastor resided beside his church. This was the primitive feudal society — the cradle, as it were, of the European and Christian world. " From this state of things necessarily arose a prodigious superiorit}^ on the part of the pos- sessor of the fief, alike in his own eyes, and in the eyes of those who surrounded him. The feeling of individual importance, of personal freedom, was the ruling principle of savage life; but here a new feeling was introduced — the importance of a proprietor, of the chief of a family, of a oiaster, predominated over that of an individual. From this situation arose an immense feeling of superiority — a superiority peculiar to the feudal ages, and entirely different from any thing which had yet been experienced in the world. Like the feudal lord, the Roman patrician was the head of a family, a master, a landlord. He was, at the same time, a religious magistrate, a pontiff in the inferior of his family. He was, moreover, a member of the municipality in which his property was situated, and perhaps one of the august senate, which, in name at least, still ruled the empire. But all this importance and dignity was derived from without — the patri- cian shared it with the other members of his municipality — with the corporation of which he formed a part. The importance of the feudal lord, again, was purely individual — he owed nothing to another; all the power ie enjoyed emanated from himself alone. What a feeling of individual consequence must such a situation have inspired — what pride, what insolence, must it have engendered in his mind! Above him was no superior, of whose orders he was to be the mere interpreter or organ — around him were no equals. No all- powerful municipality made his wishes bend to its own — no superior authority exercised a control over his wishes; he knew no bridle on his inclinations, but the limits of his power, or the presence of danger. "Another consequence, hitherto not suffi- ciently attended to, but of vast importance, flowed from this society. "The patriarchal society, of which the Bihlc and the Oriental monuments offer the model, was the first combination of men. The chief of a tribe lived with his children, his relations, the diflercnt generations who have assembled around him. This was the situation of Abra- ham—- of the patriarchs: it is still that of the Arab tribes which perpetuate their manners. The rhni, of which remains still exist in the moantains of Scotland, and the scjH of Ireland, is a nlodification of tne patriarchal socieiy: i is the family of the chief, expanded daring a succession of generations, and forming a little aggregation of dependents, still influenced by the same attachments, and subjected to ths same authority. But the feudal communitj was very different. Allied at first to the clan, it was yet in many essential particulars dissi- milar. There did not exist between its mem* bers the bond of relationship ; they were not of the same blood ; they often did not speak the same language. The feudal lord belonged to a foreign and conquering, his serfs to a do- mestic and.vanquished race. Their employ- ments were as various as their feelings and their traditions. The lord lived in his castle, with his wife, his children, and relations : the serfs on the estate, of a different race, of dif- ferent names, toiled in the cottages around. This difference was prodigious — it exercised a most powerful effect on the domestic habits of modern Europe. It engendered the attach- ments of home : it brought women into their proper sphere in domestic life. The little so- ciety of freemen, who lived in the midst of an alien race in the castle, were all in all to each other. No forum or theatres were at hand, with their cares or their pleasures ; no city enjoyments were a counterpoise to the plea- sures of country life. War and the chase broke in, it is true, grievously at times, upon this scene of domestic peace. But war and the chase could not last for ever; and, in the long intervals of undisturbed repose, family attachments formed the chief solace of life. Thus it was that women- acquired their par- amount influence — thence the manners of chi- valry, and the gallantry of modern times; they were but an extension of the courtesy and habits of the castle. The word courtesy shows it — it was in the court of the castle that the habits it denotes were learned." — Lecture iv. 13, 17; Civilisation Europccnnc. We have exhausted, perhaps, exceeded, our limits; and we have only extracted a few of the most striking ideas from the first hundred pages of one of Guizot's works — ex imo disce omiics. The translation of them has been an agreeable occupation for a few evenings; but they awake one mournful impression — the voice which uttered so many noble and en- lightened sentiments is now silent; the genius which once cast abroad light on the histor}' of man, is lost in the vortex of present politics. The philoso]iher, liie historian, are merged in the statesman — the instructor of all in the go- vernor of one generation. Great as have been his services, brilliant his course in the new career into which he has b?en launched, it is as nothing compared to that which he has left, for the one confers presei.t distinction, ibe other immortal fame. 880 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. HOMER, DANTE, KND MICHAEL ANGELO.* There is something inexpressibly striking, it may almost be said awful, in the fame of HoMEK. Three thousand years have elapsed since the bard of Chios began to pour forth his strains ; and their reputation, so far from de- clining, is on the increase. Successive na- tions are employed in celebrating 'his works; generation after generation of men are fasci- nated by his imagination. Discrepancies of race, of character, of institutions, of religion, of age, of the world, are forgotten in the com- mon worship of his genius. In this universal t-ibute of gratitude, modern Europe vies with remote antiquity, the light Frenchman with the volatile Greek, the impassioned Italian with the enthusiastic German, the sturdy Englishman with the unconquerable Roman, the aspiring Russian with the proud American. Seven cities, in ancient times, competed for the hon- our of having given him birth, but seventy na- tions have since been moulded by his produc- tions. He gave a mythology to the ancients ; he has given the fine arts to the modern world. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Juno, are still house- hold words in every tongue ; Vulcan is yet the god of fire, Neptune of the ocean, Venus of iove. When Michael Angelo and Canova strove to imbody their conceptions of heroism or beauty, they portrayed the heroes of the Iliad. Flaxman's genius was elevated to the highest point in imbodying its events. Epic poets, in subsequent times, have done little more than imitate his machinery, copy his characters, adopt his similes, and, in a few in- stances, improve upon his descriptions. Paint- ing and statuary, for two thousand years, have been employed in striving to portray, by the pencil or the chisel, his yet breathing concep- tions. Language and thought itself have been moulded by the influence of his poetry. Images of wrath are still taken from Achilles, of pride from Agamemnon, of astuteness from Ulysses, of patriotism from Hector, of tenderness from Andromache, of age from Nestor. The gal- leys of Rome were, the line-of-battle ships of France and England still are, called after his heroes. The Agamemnon long bore the flag of Nelson ; the Ajax perished by the flames within sight of the tomb of the Telamonian hero, on the shores of the Hellespont; the Achilles was blown up at the battle of Trafal- gar. Alexander the Great ran round the tomb of Achilles before undertaking the conquest of Asia. It was the boast of Napoleon that his mother reclined on tapestry representing the heroes of the Iliad, when he was brought into the world. The greatest poets of ancient and modern limes have spenttheir lives in the study Jtf his genius or the imitation of his works. Withdraw from subsequent poetry the images, mythology and characters of the Iliad, and • Blackwood's Magazine, January, 1845. what would remain 1 Petrarch spent his besi years in restoring his verses. Tasso portrayed the siege of Jerusalem, and the shock of Eu- rope and Asia, almost exactly as Homer had done the contest of the same forces, on the same shores, two thousand five hundred years before. Milton's old age, when blind and poor, was solaced by hearing the verses recited of the poet, to whose conceptions his own mighty spirit had been so much indebted; and Pope deemed himself fortunate in devoting his life to the translation of the Ilihd. No writer in modern times has equalled the wide-spread fame of the Grecian bard; but it may be doubted whether, in the realms of thought, and in sway over the reflecting world, the influence of Dante has not been almost as considerable. Little more than five hundred years, indeed, have elapsed — not a sixth of the thirty centuries which have tested the strength of the Grecian patriarch — since the immortal Florentine poured forth his divine conceptions; but yet there is scarcely a writer of eminence since that time, in works even bordering on imagination, in which traces of his genius are not to be found. The Inferno has penetrated the world. If images of horror are sought after, it is to his works that all the subsequent ages have turned ; if those of love and divine felicity are desired, all turn to the Paradise and the Spirit of Beatrice. When the historians of the French Revolution wished to convey an idea of the utmost agonies they ""ere called on to portray, they contented themselves with say- ing it equalled all that the ima,gination of Dante had conceived of the terrible. Sir Joshua Rey- nolds has exerted his highest genius in depict- ing the frightful scene described by him, when Ugolino perished of hunger in the tower of Pisa. Alfieri, Metastasio, Corneille, Lope de Vega, and all the great masters of the tragic muse, have sought in his works the germs of their finest conceptions. The first of these tragedians marked two-thirds of the Infcriw and Paradiso as worthy of being committed to me-i mory. Modern novelists have found in his prolific mind the storehouse from which they have drawn their noblest imagery, the chord by which to strike the profoundest feelings of the human heart. Eighty editions of his poems have been published in Europe within the last half century; and the public admiration, so far from being satiated, is augmenting. Every scholar knows how largely Milton was indebted to his poems for many of his most powerful images. Byron inherited, though often at second hand, his mantle, in many of his most moving conceptions. Schiller has imbodied them in a noble historic mirror ; and the dreams of Goethe reveal the secret influence of the terrible imagination which portrayed the deep remorse and hopeless agonies of Malebolge. Michael Ajtgelo has exercised an influend HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO. 381 on modern art, little, if at all, inferior to that produced on the realms of thought by Homer and Dante. The father of Italian painting, the author of the frescoes on the Sistine Chapel, he Tivas, at the same time, the restorer of an- cient sculpture, and the intrepid arcliitect who placed the Pantheon in the air. Raphael con- fessed, that he owed to the contemplation of his works his most elevated conceptions of their divine art. Sculpture, under his original hand, started from the slumber of a thousand years, in all the freshness of youthful vigour; architecture, in subsequent times, has sought in vain to equal, and can never hope to sur- pass, his immortal monument in the matchless dome of St. P.eter's. He found painting in its infancy — he left it arrived at absolute perfec- tion. He first demonstrated of what that no- ble art is capable. In the Last Judgment he revealed its wonderful powers, exhibiting, as it were, at one view, the whole circles of Dante's Inferno — portraying with terrible fidelity the agonies of the wicked, when the last trumpet shall tear the veil from their faces, and exhibit in undisguised truth that most fearful of spec- tacles — a naked human heart. Casting aside, perhaps with undue contempt, the adventitious aid derived from finishing, colouring, and exe- cution, he threw the whole force of his genius into the design, the expression of the features, the drawing of the figures. There never was such a delineator of bone and muscle as Michael Angelo. His frescoes stand out in bold relief from the walls of the Vatican, like the sculptures of Phidias from the pediment of the Parthenon. He was the founder of the school of painting both at Rome and Florence — that great school which, disdaining the re- presentation of still life, and all the subordinate appliances of the art, devoted itself to the re- presentation of the grand and the beautiful ; to the expression of passion in all its vehemence —of emotion in all its intensity. His incom- parable delineation of bones and muscles was but a means to an end ; it was the human heart, the throes of human passion, that his master-hand laid bare. Raphael congratulated himself, and thanked God that he had given him life in the same age with that painter ; and Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his last address to the Academy, " reflected, not Avithout vanity, that his Discourses bore testimony to his admira- tion of that truly divine man, and desired that the last words he pronounced in that academy, and from that chair, might be the name of Michael Angelo."* The fame of these illustrious men has long been placed beyond the reach of cavil. Criti- cism cannot reach, envy cannot detract from, emulation cannot equal them. Great present celebrity, indeed, is no guarantee for future and enduring fame; in many cases, it is the reverse ; but there is a wide difl'erence between the judgment of the present and that of future ages. The favour of the great, the passions of the multitude, the efiI"orts of reviewers, the interest of booksellers, a clique of authors, a coterie of ladies, accidental events, degrading propensities, often enter largely into the com- • Reynolds's Discourses, No. 16, adjinem. position of present reputation. But opinion is freed from all these disturbing influences by the lapse of time. The grave is the greatest of all purifiers. Literary jealousy, interested partiality, vulgar applause, exclusive favour, alike disappear before the hand of death. We never can be sufliciently distrustful of present opinion, so largely is it directed by passion oi interest. But we may rely with confidence on the judgment of successive generations on de- parted eminence ; for it is detached from the chief cause of present aberration. So various are the prejudices, so contradictory the par- tialities and predilections of men, in different countries and ages of the world, that they never can concur through a course of cen- turies in one opinion, if it is not founded in truth and justice. The vox pnpuli is often little more than the vox diaboU; but the voice of ages is the voice of God. It is of more moment to consider in what the greatness of these illustrious men really consists — to what it has probably been owing — and in what particulars they bear an an- alogy to each other. They are all three distinguished by one pe- culiarity, which doubtless entered largely into their transcendent merit — they wrote in the infancy of civilization. Homer, as all the world knows, is the oldest profane author in existence. Dante flourished al)out the year 1300: he lived at a time when the English barons lived in rooms strewed with rushes, and few of them could sign their names. The long life of Michafil Angelo, extending from 1474 to 1564, over ninety years, if not passed in the infancy of civilization, was at least passed in the childhood of the arts : before his time, painting was in its cradle. Cimabue had merely unfolded the first dawn of beauty at Florence; and the stiff figures of Pietro Peru- gino, which inay be traced in the first works of his pupil Raphael, still attest the backward state of the arts at Rome. This peculiarity, applicable alike to all these three great men, is vcrj' remarkable, and beyond all question had a powerful influence, both in forming their peculiar character, and elevating them to the astonishing greatness which they speedily at- tained. It gave them — what Johnson has justly termed the first requisite to human greatness — self-confidence. They were the first — at least the first known to themselves and their con- temporaries — who adventured on their several arts ; and thus they proceeded /«;»/(. Wy in their great career. They had neither critics to fear, nor lords to flatter, nor former excellence to imilale. They portrayed with the pencil, or in verse, what they severally fell, undisturbed by fear, unswayed by example, unsulicilous about fame, unconscious of excellence. They did so for the first time. Thence the freshness and originality, the vigour ami truth, the (Sim- plicity and raciness by which they arc dis- tinguished. Shakspeare owed much of his greatness to the same cause; and thence his similarity, in many respects, to these gieat masters of his own or the sister arts. When Pope asked Bentley what he thought of his translation of the Iliad, the scholar replied, 882 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. "You have written a pretty book, Mr. Pope; but you must not call it Homer." Bentley was right. With all its pomp of language and melody of versification, its richness of imagery and magnificence of diction. Pope's Homer is widely different from the original. He could not avoid it. Your "awful simplicity of the Grecian bard, his artless grandeur and unaf- fected majesty," will be sought for in vain in the translation ; but if they had appeared there, it would have been unreadable in that age. Michael Angelo, in his bold conceptions, ener- getic will, and rapid execution, bears a close resemblance to the father of poetry. In both, the same faults, as we esteem them, are con- spicuous, arising from a too close imitation of nature, and a carelessness in rejecting im- ages or objects which are of an ordinary or homely description. Dante was incomparably- more learned than either : he followed Virgil in his descent to the infernal regions ; and ex- hibits an intimate acquaintance with ancient history, as well as that of the modern Italian states, in the account of the characters he meets in that scene of torment. But in his own line he was entirely original. Homer and Virgil had, in episodes of their poems, intro- duced a picture of the infernal regions; but nothing on the plan of Dante's Inferno had be- fore been thought of in the world. With much of the machinery of the ancients, it bears the stamp of the spiritual faith of modern times. It lays bare the heart in a way unknown even to Homer and Euripides. It reveals the in- most man in a way which bespeaks the centu- ries of self-reflection in the cloister which had preceded it. It is the basis of all the spiritual poetry of modern, as the Iliad is of all the ex- ternal imagery of ancient, times. In this respect there is a most grievous im- pediment to genius in later, or, as we term them, more civilized times, from which, in earlier ages, it is wholly exempt. Criticism, public opinion, the dread of ridicule — then too often crush the strongest minds. The Aveight of former examples, the influence of early habits, the halo of long-established reputation, force original genius from the untrodden path of invention into the beaten one of imitation. Early talent feels itself overawed by the colos- sus which all the world adores ; it falls down andworships, instead of conceiving. The dread of ridicule extinguishes originality in its birth. Immense is the incubus thus laid upon the efforts of genius. It is the chief cause of the degradation of taste, the artificial style, the want of original conception, by which the literature of old nations is invariably dis- tinguished. The early poet or painter who portrays what he feels or has seen, with no anxiety but to do so powerfully and truly, is relieved of a load which crushes his subse- quent compeers to the earth. Mediocrity is ever envious of genius — ordinary capacity of original thought. Such envy in early times is innocuous or does not exist, at least to the ex- tent which is felt as so baneful in subsequent periods. But in a refined and enlightened age, its influence becomes incalculable. Who- ever strikes out a new region of thought or composition, whoever opens a fresh vein of im- agery or excellence, is persecuted by the cri. tics. He disturbs settled ideas, endangers es. tablished reputation, brings forward rivals tc dominant fame. That is sufficient to render him the enemy of all the existing rulers in the world of taste. Even Jeffrey seriously la- mented, in one of his first reviews of Scott's poems, that he should have identified himself with the unpicturesque and expiring images of feudality, which no effort Qould render poeti- cal. Racine's tragedies were received with such a storm of criticism as wellnigh cost the sensitive author his life; and Rousseau was so rudely handled by contemporary writers on his first appearance, that it confirmed him in his morbid hatred of civilization. The vigour of these great men, indeed, overcame the ob- stacles created by contemporary envy; but how seldom, especially in a refined age, can genius effect such a prodigy 1 how often is it crushed in the outset of its career, or turned aside into the humble and unobtrusive path of imitation, to shun the danger with which that of originality is beset! Milton's Paradise Lost contains many more lines of poetic beauty than Homer's Iliad; and there is nothing in the latter poem of equal length, which will bear any comparison with the exquisite picture of the primeval innocence of our First Parents in his fourth book. Never- theless, the Iliad is a more interesting poem than the Paradise Lost ; and has produced and will produce a much more extensive impres- sion on mankind. The reason is, that it is much fuller of event, is more varied, is more filled with images familiar to all mankind, and is less lost in metaphysical or philosophical abstractions. Homer, though the father of poets, was essentially dramatic ; he was an incomparable painter ; and it is his dramatic scenes, the moving panorama of his pictures, which fascinates the world. He often speaks to the heart, and is admirable in the delinea- tion of character ; but he is so, not by convey- ing the inward feeling, but by painting with matchless fidelity its external symptoms, or putting into the mouths of his characters the precise words they would have used in similar circumstances in real life. Even his immortal parting of Hector and Andromache is no ex- ception to this remark ; he paints the scene at the Scsean gate exactly as it would have oc- curred in nature, and moves us as if we had seen the Trojan hero taking off his helmet to assuage the terrors of his infant son, and heard the lamentations of his mother at parting with her husband. But he does not lay bare the heart, with the terrible force of Dante, by a line or a word. There is nothing in Homer which conveys so piercing an idea of misery as the line in the Inferno, where the Florentine bard assigns the reason of the lamentations of the spirits in Malebolge — " Questi non hanno speranza di raorte." " These have not the hope of death." There speaks the spiritual poet ; he does not paint to the eye, he does not even convey character by the words he makes them utter ; he pierces, by a single expression, at once to the heart. Milton strove to raise earth to heaven ; Ho- mer brought down heaven to earth The latter HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL AKGELO. 388 attempt was a much easier one than the for- mer; it was more consonant to hinnan frailty; and, therefore, it has met with more success. The gods and goddesses in the Iliad are men and women, endowed with human passions, affections, and desires, and distinguished only from sublunary beings by superior power and the gift. of immortality. We are interested in them as we are in the genii or magicians of an eastern romance. There is a sort of aerial epic poem going on between earth and heaven. They take sides in the terrestrial combat, and engage in the actual strife with the iieroes en- gaged in it. Mars and Venus were wounded by Diomede when combatting in the Trojan ranks : their blood, or rather the "Ichor wliicli blest immortals shed," flowed profusely; they fled howling to the pa- laces of heaven. Enlightened by a spiritual faith, fraught with sublime ideas of the divine nature and government, Milton was incompa- rably more just in his descriptions of the Su- preme Being, and more elevated in his picture of the angels and archangels who carried on the strife in heaven; but he frequently falls into metaphysical abstractions or theological controversies, which detract from the interest of his poem. Despite Milton's own opinion, the concurring voice of all subsequent ages and countries has assigned to the Paradise Regained a muc^h lower place than to the Paradise Lost. The reason is, that it is less dramatic — it has less incident and action. Great part of the poem is but an abstract theological debate between our Saviour and Satan. The speeches he makes them utter are admirable, the reasoning is close, the arguments cogent, the sentiments elevated in the speakers, but dialectic too. In many of the speeches of the angel Raphael, and in the council of heaven, in the Paradise Lost, there is too much of that species of dis- cussion for a poem which is to interest the generality of men. Dryden says, that Satan is Milton's real hero; and every reader of the Paradi. are never tired of recurring to the bower of Eve, to her devotion to Adam, to the exquisite scenes of Paradise, its woods, its waters, its flowers, its enchant- ments. We are so, because we feel that it paints the Elysium to Mhich all aspire, which all have for a brief period felt, but which none in this world can durably enjoy. No one can doubt that Homer was endowed with the true poetic spirit, and yet there is very little of what we now call poetry in his writings. Therc'is nciiher scntinu-nt nor de- clriination — painting nor rcllection. He is neither descriptive nor didactic. With great powers for portmying nature, as the exquisite choice of his epithets, and the occasional force of his similes prove, he never makes any In 384 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. boured attempt to delineate her features. He had the eye of a great painter ; but his pictorial talents are employed, almost unconsciously, in the fervour of narrating events, or the ani- mation of giving utterance to thoughts. He painted by an epithet or a line. Even the celebrated description of the fires in the plain of Troy, like^ned to the moon in a serene night, is contained in seven lines. His rosy-fingered morn — cloud-compelling Jupiter — Neptune, stiller of the waves — Aurora rising from her crocus-bed — Night drawing her veil over the heavens — the black keel careering through the lashing waves — the shout of the far-sounding sea — and the like, from which subsequent poets and dramatists have borrowed so largely, are all brief allusions, or epithets, which evidently did not form the main object of his strains. He was a close observer of nature — its lights, its shades, its storms and calms, its animals, their migrations, their cries and habits; but he never suspends his narrative to describe them. We shall look in vain in the Iliad, and even the Odyssey, for the lengthened pictures of scenery which are so frequent in Virgil and Tasso, and appear in such rich profusion in Milton. He describes storms only as objects of terror, not to paint them to the eye. Such things are to be found in the book of Job and m the Psalms, but with the same brevity and magical force of emphatic expression. There never was a greater painter of nature than Ho- mer ; there never was a man who aimed less at being so. The portraying of character and event was the great and evident object of the Grecian bard; and there his powers may almost be pronounced unrivalled. He never tells you, unless it is sometimes to be inferred from an epithet, what the man's character that he in- troduces is. He trusts to the character to delineate itself. He lets us get acquainted with his heroes, as we do with persons around us, by hearing them speak, and seeing them act. In preserving character, in this dramatic way of representing it, he is unrivalled. He does not tell you that Nestor had the garrulity of age, and loved to recur to the events of his youth; but he never makes him open his mouth without descanting on the adventures of his early years, and the degenerate race of mcrtals who have succeeded the paladins of former days. He does not tell us that Achilles was wrathful and impetuous ; but every time he speaks, the anger of the son of Peleus comes boiling over his lips. He does not describe Agamemnon as overbearing and haughty; but the pride of the king of men is continually appearing in his words and actions, and it is the evident moral of the Iliad to rep- resent its pernicious effects on the affairs of the Helenic confederacy. Ulysses never utters a word in which the cautious and prudent counsellor, sagacious in design but prompt in execution, wary in the council but decided in the field, far-seeing but yet persevering, is not apparent. Diomede never falters ; alike in the field and the council he is indomitable. When Hector was careering in his chariot round their fortifications, and the king of men coun- selled retreat, he declared he would remain, were it only with Sthenelus and his friends. So completely marked, so well defined are his characters, though they were all rapacious chiefs at first sight, little differing from each other, that it has been observed with truth, that one well acquainted with the Hiad could tell, upon hearing one of the speeches read out without a name, who was the chief who uttered it. The two authors, since his time, who have most nearly approached him in this respect, are Shakspeare and Scott. Both seem to have received the pencil which paints the human heart from nature herself Both had a keen and searching eye for character in all grades and walks of life ; and what is a general ac- companiment of such a disposition, a strong sense of the ridiculous. Both seized the salient points in mental disposition, and perceived at a glance, as it were, the ruling propensity Both impressed this character so strongly on their minds, that they threw themselves, as it were, into the very souls of the persons whom they delineated, and made them speak and act like nature herself It is this extraordinary faculty of identifying themselves with their characters, and bringing out of their mouth the very words which, in real life, would have come, which constitutes the chief and perma- nent attraction of these wonderful masters of the human heart. Cervantes had it in an equal degree ; and thence it is that Homer, Shakspeare, Cervantes, and Scott, have made so great, and to all appearance, durable im- pression on mankind. The human heart is, at bottom, everywhere the same. There ia infinite diversity in the dress he wears, but the naked human figure of one country scarcely differs from another. The writers who have succeeded in reach'ng this deep substratum, this far-hidden but common source of human action, are understood and admired overall the world. It is the same on the banks of tha Simois as on those of the Avon — on the Sierra Morena as the Scottish hills. They are under- stood alike in Europe as Asia — in antiquity a? modern times ; one unanimous burst of admi- ration salutes them from the North Cape to Cape Horn — from the age of Pisistratus to tha? of Napoleon. Strange as it may appear to superficial ob servers, Cervantes bears a close analogy, ia many particulars, to Homer. Circumstances, and ail inherent turn for humour, made hin throw his genius into an exquisite ridicule of the manners of chivalry; but the author of Don Quixote had in him the spirit of a grea/ epic poet. His lesser pieces prove it; une- quivocal traces of it are to be found in th* adventures of the Knight of La Mancha him self. The elevation of mind which, amidst a^ his aberrations, appears in that erratic cha- racter; the incomparable traits of nature witl" which the work abounds ; the faculty of de- scribing events in the most striking way ; of painting scenes in a few words; of delineating characters with graphic fidelity, and keeping them up with perfect consistency, Avhich arf so conspicuous in Dmi Quixote, are so manj of the most essential qualities of an epic poet Nor was the ardour of imagination, tha KOAIER. DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO. bS.O romantic disposition, the brilliancy of fancy, the lofty aspirations, the tender heart, which form the more elevated and not less essential part of such a character, wanting in the Span- ish novelist. Sir Walter Scott more nearlj' resembles Homer than any poet who has sung since the siege of Troy. Not that he has produced any poem which will for a moment bear a com- parison with the TItad — fine as the Lady of the Lahc and Mnnnion are, it would be the height of national partiality to make any such com- parison. But, nevertheless. Sir Walter's mind is of the same dimensions as that of Homer. We see in him the same combination of natural sagacity with acquired information; of pictorial eye with dramatic effect ; of observa- tion of character with reflection and feeling; of graphic power with poetic fervour; of ardour of imagination with rectitude of prin- ciple ; of warlike enthusiasm with pacific ten- derness, which have rendered the Grecian bard immortal. It is in his novels, however, more than his poetrj% that this resemblance appears ; the author of I Tara/cy more nearly approaches the blind bard than the author of the Lcaj. His Romances in verse contain some passages which are sublime, many which are beautiful, some pathetic. They are all interesting, and written in the same easy, careless style, inter- spersed with the most homely and grotesque expressions, which is so well known to all the readers of the Iliad. The battle in Marmion is be3-ond all question, as Jeffrey long ago remarked, the most Homeric strife which has been sung since the days of Homer. But these passages are few and far between; his poems are filled with numerous and long interludes, written with little art, and apparently no other object but to fill up the pages or eke out the story. It is in prose that the robust strength, the powerful arm, the profound knowledge of the heart, appear; and it is there, accordingly, that he approaches at times so closely to Homer. If we could conceive a poem in which the storming of Front-de-Bocuf's castle in Ivanhoc — the death of Fergus in Wavcrky — the storm on the coast, and death-scene in the fisher's hut, in the Jlnliijuary — the devoted love in the Bride of Lammcnnnor — the fervour of the ('ovenanlers in Old Mortality, and the combats of Richnrd and Saladin in the Talisman, were united together and intermingled with the in- comparable characters, descriptions, nnd inci- dents with which these novels abound, they would form an epic poem. Doubts have sometimes been expressed, as to whether the Iliad and Odyssey are all the production of one man. Never, perhaps, was doubt not merely so ill-founded, but so decisive- ly disproved by internal evidence. If ever in human composition the traces of one mind are conspicuous, they are in Homer. His beauties equally with his defects, his variety and uni- formity attest this. Never was an author who had so fertile an imagination for varying of in- cidents; never was one who expressed them in language in which the same words so con- stantly recur. This is tlie invariable charac- teristic of a great and powerful, but at the same time self-confident but careless mind. 2a It is to be seen in the most remarkable mannei in Bacon and IMachiavel, and not a little of it may be traced both in the prose and poetical works of Scott. The reason is, that the strength of the mind is thrown into the thought as the main object; the language, as a subordinate matter, is little considered. Expressions ca- pable of energetically expressing the prevail- ing ideas of imagination are early formed; but, when this is done, the powerful, careless mind, readily adopts them on all future occa- sions where they are at all applicable. There is scarcely a great and original thinker in whose writings the same expressions do not very frequently recur, often in exactly the same words. How much this is the case with Homer — with how much discrimination and genius his epithets and expressions were first chosen, and how frequently he repeats them, almost ip every page, need be told to none who are ac- quainted M'ith his writings. That is the inosi decisive mark at once of genius and identity. Original thinkers fall into repetition of expres- sion, because they are always speaking from one model — their own thoughts. Subordinate writers avoid this fault, because they are speaking from the thoughts of others, and share their variety. It requires as great an effort for the first to introduce difference of ex- pression as for the last to reach diversity of thought. The reader of Dante must not look for the heart-stirring and animated narrative — the con- stant interest — the breathless suspense, which hurries us along the rapid current of the Iliad. There are no councils of the gods ; no messen- gers winging their way through the clouds ; no combats of chiefs , no cities to storm ; no fields to win. It is the infernal regions which the poet, under the guidance of his great leader, Virgil, visits; it is the scene of righteous re tribution through which he is led : it is the ap- portionment of punishment and reward to crime or virtue, in this upper world, that he is doomed to witness. We enter the city of la mentation — we look down the depths of the bottomless pit — we stand at the edge of the burning lake. His survey is not the mere Iran sient visit like that of Ulysses in Homer, or of i^Eneas in Virgil. He is taken slowly and de- liberately through every successive circle of Malebolge; descending down which, like the visitor of the tiers of vaults, one beneath another, in a feudal castle, he finds every spe- cies of malefactors, from the chiefs and kings whose heroic lives were stained only bj' a few deeds of cruelty, to the depraved malefactors whose base course was unrelieved by one ray of virtue. In the very conception of such a poem, is to be found decisive evidence of the mighty change which the human mind had undergone since the expiring lays of poetry were last heard in the ancient world; of the vast revolution of thought and inward convic- tion which, during a tiunisand years, in the solitude of the monastery, and under the sway of a spiritual faith, had taken place in the human heart. A gay and poetic mythology no longer amazed the world by its fictions, or charmed it by its imagery. Religion no longer basked in the sunshine of imaginathin. 380 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. The awful words of judgment to come had been spoken ; and, like Felix, mankind had trembled. Ridiculous legends had ceased to be associated with the shades below — their place had been taken by images of horror. Conscience had resumed its place in the direc- tion of thought. Superstition had lent its awful power to the sanctions of religion. Terror of future punishment had subdued the fiercest passions — internal agony tamed the proudest spirits. It was the picture of a future world — of a world of retribution — conceived under such impressions, that Dante proposed to give ; it is that which he has given with such terrible fidelity. Melancholy was the prevailing characteris- tic of the great Italian's mind. It was so pro- found that it penetrated all his thoughts ; so intense that it pervaded all his conceptions. Occasionally bright and beautiful ideas flitted across his imagination ; visions of bliss, ex- perienced for a moment, and then lost for ever, as if to render more profound the darkness by which they are surrounded. They are given with exquisite beauty; but they shine amidst the gloom like sunbeams struggling through the clouds. He inherited from the dark ages the austerity of the cloister ; but he inherited with it the deep feelings and sublime concep- tions which its seclusion had generated. His mind was a world within itself. He drew all his conceptions from that inexhaustible source; but he drew them forth so clear and lucid, that they emerged, imbodied as it were, in living images. His characters are emblematic of the various passions and views for which dif- ferent degrees of punishment were reserved in the world to come ; but his conception of them was so distinct, his description so vivid, that they stand forth to our gaze in all the agony of their sufferings, like real flesh and blood. We see them — we feel them — we hear their cries — our very flesh creeps at the perception of their suff'erings. We stand on the edge of the lake of boiling pitch — we feel the weight of the leaden mantles — we see the snow-like flakes of burning sand — we hear the cries of those who had lost the last earthly consolations, the hope of death : — " Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai Risonavati per 1' aer soiiza stelle, Perch' io al cominciar ne lacrimal. Diverse lingiie, orribili favelle, Parole didolore, accenti d' ira, Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle, Facevano un tumnlto, il qual s' aggira Sempre 'n quell' aria senza tempo tinta Come la rcna quando '1 turbo spira. * * * * Kd io : maestro, olie 6 taiito greve A lor clie laineritar li fa si forte"! Kisposo : diccrolti niolto breve. Questi non hanno speranza di morte." Inferno, c. iii. "Here sighs, with lamentations and loud moans Resounded through the air pierced by no star, ' That e'en I wept at entering. Various tongues JIorriMe anguages, outcries of wo, ' Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse, Willi hands together smote that swcU'd the sounds Ma.le up a tumult, that for ever whirls ' Round through that air with solid darkness stained Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies ' * * * * * • I "ifii : Master! What doth aggrieve them thus That they lament so loud I He straight replied • ' That will I tell tliee briefly. These of death No hope may entertain." Caby's Dante, Inferno, c. iii. | Here is Dante portrayed to the life in the very outset. What a collection of awful images in a few lines ! Loud lamentations, hideous cries, mingled with the sound of clasped hands, beneath a starless sky; and the terrible an* swer, as the cause of this suffering, " These have not the hope of death." The very first lines of the Inferno, when the gates of Hell were approached, and the in- scription over them appeared, paint the dis- mal character of the poem, and yet mingled with the sense of divine love and justice with which the author was penetrated. " Per me si va nella citti dolente ; Per me si va nell' eterno dolore ; Per me si va tra la perduta gente : Giustizia niosse '1 mio alto Fattore ; Fecemi la divina Potestate, La somma Sapienza e '1 primo Amore. Dinanzi a me non fur cose create, Se non eterne ; ed io eterno duro : Lasciate ogni speranza voi che 'ntrate." Inferno, c. lit " Through me you pass into the city of wo ; Through me you pass into eternal pain : Through me among the people lost for aye. .Justice the founder of my fabric moved : To rear me was the task of power divine, Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Gary's Dante, Inferno, c. iii. Dante had much more profound feelings than Homer, and therefore he has painted deep mysteries of the human heart with greater force and fidelity. The more advanced age of the world, the influence of a spiritual faith, the awful anticipation of judgment to come, the inmost feelings which, during long centuries of seclusion, had been drawn forth in the cloister, the protracted suiTerings of the dark ages, had laid bare the human heart. Its suf- ferings, its terrors, its hopes, its joys, had be- come as household words. 'I he Italian poet shared, as all do, in the ideas and images of his age, and to these he added many which were entirely his own. He painted the inward man, and painted him from his own feelings, not the observation of others. That is the grand dis- tinction between him and Homer ; and that it is which has given him, in the delineation of mind, his great superiority. The Grecian bard was an incomparable observer; he had an in- exhaustible imagination for fiction, as ■well as a graphic eye for the delineation of real life ; but he had not a deep or feeling heart. He did not know it, like Dante and Shakspeare, from his own suffering. He painted the external symptoms of passion and emotion with the hand of a master ; but he did not reach the inward spring of feeling. He lets us into his characters by their speeches, their gestures, their actions, and keeps up their consistency with admirable fidelity; but he does not, by a word, an expression, or an epithet, admit us into the inmost folds of the heart. None can do so but such as themselves feel warmly and profoundly, and paint passion, emotion, or sufl^ering, from their own experience, not the observation of others. Dante has acquired his colossal fame from the matchless force with which he has portrayed the wildest passions, the deepest feelings, the most intense suffer- ings of the heart. He is the refuge of all HOMER, DAXTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO. 387 hose who labour and are heavy laden — of all iv'ho feel p rofoiuidly or have suffered decpl}'. His verses are in the mouth of all who are torn by passion, gnawed by remorse, or tor- mented by apprehension; and how many are they in this scene of wo ! A distinguished modern critic* has said, that he who m'ouU now become a great poet must first become a little child. There is no doubt he is right. The seen and unseen fetters of civilization; the multitude of old ideas afloat in the world; the innumerable worn out chan- nels into which new ones are ever apt to flow; the general clamour with which critics, nursed amidst such fetters, receive an)^ attempts at breaking them; the prevalence, in a wealthy and highly civilized age, of worldly or selfish ideas ; the common approximation of charac- ters by perpetual intercourse, as of coins, by coiUinual rubbing in passing from man to man, have taken away all freshness and originality from ideas. The learned, the polished, the highly educated, can hardly escape the fetters which former greatness throws over the soul. Milton could not avoid them ; half the images in his poems are taken from Homer, Virgil, and Dante ; and who dare hope for emancipa- tion when Milton was enthralled 1 The me- chanical arts increase in perfection as society advances. Science ever takes its renewed flights from the platform which former efforts have erected. Industr}', guided by experience, in successive ages, brings to the highest point all the contrivances and inventions which mi- nister to the comfort or elegancies of life. But it is otherwise with genius. It sinks in the progress of society, as much as science and the arts rise. The country of Homer and JEschylus sank for a thousand years into the torpor of the Byzantine empire. Originality perishes amidst acquisition. Freshness of conception is its life: like the flame, it burns fierce and clear in the first gales of a pure atmosphere ; but languishes and dies in that polluted by many breaths. It was the resurrection of the human mind, after the seclusion and solitary reflection of the middle ages, which gave this vein of ori- ginal ideas to Dante, as their first wakening had given to Homer. Thought was not ex- tinct; the human mind was not dormant dur- ing the dark ages; far from it — it never, in some respects, was more active. It was the first collision of their deep and lonely medita- tions with the works of the great ancient poets, which occasioned the prodigy. Uni- versally it will be fi)und to be the same. Afli-r the first flights of genius have been taken, it is by the collision of subsequent thouglit with it Chat the divine spark is again elicited. The meeting of two great minds is necessary to beget fresh ideas, as that of two clouds is to bring forth lightning, or the collision of flint and steel to produce fire. Johnson said he could not get new ideas till he had read. He was right; though it is not one in a thousand who strikes out original thoughts from study- ing the works of others. The great sage did not read to imbibe the opinion cf others, but * Macaulay, to engender new ones for himself; he did not study to imitate, but to create. It was the same with Dante ; it is the same with every really great man. His was the first powerful and original mind which, fraught with the profound and gloomy ideas nourished in seclu- sion during the middle ages, came into contact with the brilliant imagery, touching pathos, and harmonious language of the ancients. Hence his astonishing greatness. He almost worshipped Virgil, he speaks of him as a spe- cies of god; he mentions Homer as the first of poets. But he did not copy either the one or the other; he scarcely imitated them. He strove to rival their brevity and beauty of ex- pression; but he did so in giving vent to new ideas, in painting new images, in awakening new emotions. The Inferno is as original as the Iliad: incomparably more so than the JSncicL The offspring of originality with ori- ginality is a new and noble creation ; of origi- nality with mediocrity, a spurious and degraded imitation. Dante paints the spirit of all the generations of men, each in their circle undergoing their allotted punishment; expiating by suffering the sins of an upper world. Virgil gave a glimpse, as it were, into that scene of retribu- tion ; Minos and Rhadamanthus passing judg ment on the successive spirits brought before them ; the flames of Tartarus, the rock of Si- syphus, the wheel of Ixion, the vulture gnaw- ing Prometheus. But with Homer and Virgil, the descent into the iufernal regions was a brief episode ; with Dante it was the Avhole poem. Immense was the effort of imagina- tion requisite to give A^ariety to such a subject, to prevent the mind from experiencing weari- ness amidst the eternal recurrence of crime and punishment. But the genius of Dante was equal to the task. His fancy Avas prodi- gious ; his invention boundless ; his imagina- tion inexhaustible. Fenced in, as he was, within narrow and gloomy limils by the nature of his subject, his creative spirit ctfuals that of Homer himself. He has given birth to as many new ideas in the Li/cnio and the Parudiso, as the Grecian bard in the Iliad and Odijsscij, Though he had reflected so much and so deeply on the human heart, and was so perfect a master of all the anatomy of mental sufl'er- ing, Dante's mind was essentially descriptive. He was a great painter as well as a profound thinker; he clothed deep feeling in the garb of the senses; he conceived a vast brood of new ideas, he arrayed them in a surprising manner in flesh and blood. He is ever clear and definite, at least in the Inferno. He ex- hibits in every canto of that wonderful poem a fresh image, but it is a clear one, of horror cr anguish, which loaves nothing to ihe imagina- tion to add or conceive. His ideal characters are real persons ; they are present to our senses; we feel their ilcsh, see the quiverin* of their limbs, hear their lamentations, and feel a thrill of joy at their felicitv. In the Paradico he is more vague and general, and thence its acknowledged inferiority to the Infa-no. But the images of horror are much more powerful than those of happiness, and it is they Avhich have entranced the world. " It SS8 AEISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. '.-; easier," says Madame de Stael, " to convey ileas of suffering than those of happiness; for the former are too well knov/n to every heart, the latter only to a few." The melancholy tone which pervades Dante's writings was doubtless, in a great measure, owing to the misfortunes of his life ; and to them we are also indebted for many of the most caustic and powerful of his verses — per- haps for the design of the Inferno itself. He took vengeance on the generation v>'hich had persecuted and exiled him, by exhibiting its leaders suffering in the torments of hell. In his long seclusion, chiefly in the monastery of Santa Croce di Fonte Avellana, a wild and solitary retreat in the territory of Gubbio, and in a tower belonging to the Conte Falcucci, in the same districts his immortal work M^as writ- ten. The mortifications he underwent during this long and dismal exile are thus described by himself : — " Wandering over almost every part in which our language extends, I have gone about like a mendicant ; showing against my will the wound with w^hich fortune has smitten me, and which is often falsely imputed to the demerit of him by whom it is endured. I have been, indeed, 'a vessel v/ithout sail or steerage, carried about to divers ports, and roads, and shores, by the dry wind that springs out of sad poverty." In the third circle of hell, Dante sees those who aie punished by the plague of burning sand falling perpetually on them. Their tor- ments are thus described — " Supin giaceva in terra alcuna gente ; Alcuna si sedea tutta raccolta ; Ed altra amiava continuainente. Quella clie glva intorno era piii molta ; E quella men che giaceva altormeiito; Ma piu al duolo avea la lingua seiolta. Sovra tutto '1 sabbion d'un cader lento Piovean di fuoco dilatate falde, Come di neve in alpe senza vento. Quali Alessandro in quelle parti calde D' India vide sovra lo suo stuolo Fiamme cadere iiifino a terra salde." Inferno, c. xiv. " Of nake-d spirits many a flock I saw, AH weeping piteously, to diflerent laws Subjected : for on earth some lay supine, Some crouching close were seated, others paced Incessantly around ; the latter tribe More numerous, those fewer who beneath The torment lay, but louder in their grief. O'er all the sand fell slowly wafting down Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow On Alpine summit, when the wind is hush'd. As, in the torrid Indian clime, the son Of Amnion saw, upon his warrior band Descendin!;, solid flames, that to the ground Came down." Gary's Dante, c. xiv. The first appearance of Malebolge is de- Rcribed in these striking lines — "Luogo 6 in Inferno, detto Malebolge, Tullo di pielra c di color ferriiino. Come le ccrchia che d' intorno il volire. Nel drilto mezzo del campo maligno VanegL'ia un pozzo assai lariro e profondo, Di cui suo Inogo conteri'i 1' ordigno. Quel cinghio die riniane aduuque 6 tondo Tra 'I pozzo e '1 pi6 iell' alta ripa dura, E lia 'iisiinto in dieti valli al fondo." Inferno, c. xviii. "There is a place within the depths of hell '--'all'd .Malebolge, all of rock dark-stained With hue ferruginous, e'en as the strep That round it circling winds. Right in the midst Of that abominable region yawns A spacious gulf profound, whereof the frame Due time shall tell. The circle, that remains, 'I'hrougliout its round, between the gulf and bage Of the hish craggy banks, successive forms Ten bastions, in its hollow bottom raised." Gary's Pante, c. xvlsl This is tlie outward appearance of Malebolge, the worst place of punishment in hell. It had many frightful abysses; what follows is th picture of the first : — "Ristemmo per veder I'altra fessma Di Malebolge e gli altri pianti vani : E vidila mirabilmente oscura. Quale neir arzana de' Veneziani Bolle r iuverno la teuace pece, A rimpalmar li legni lor non sani— * * * * Tal non per fuoco ma per divina arte, Eollia laggiuso una pegola spessa, Cho 'nviscava la ripa d'ogni parte. I' vedea lei, ma non vedeva in essa Ma che le bolle che '1 bollor levava, ' E gonfiar tutta e riseder compressa. * * * » E vidi dietro a noi un diavol nero Correndo su per lo scoglio venire. Ahi quant' egli era nell' aspetto fiero! E quanto mi parea nell' atto acerbo. Con r ali aperte e sovre i pie leggiero ! L' omero suo ch' era acuto e superbo Carcava un peccator con ambo I'anche, Ed ei tenea de' pi6 ghermito il nerbo. * * * • Laggiii il butt6 e per lo scoglio duro Si voise, e niai non fu mastino sciolto Co tanta fretta a seguitar lo furo. Quel s' attuiib e torno su convolto ; Ma i demon che del ponte avean coverchio Gridar : qui non ha luogo il Santo Volto. Qui si nuota aitramenti che nel Serchio Verb se tu non vuoi de' nostri graffi, Non far sovra le pegola soverciiio. Poi r addentar con piii di cento rafli, Di-sser: coverto convien che qui balli. Si che se puoi nascosamente accaffl." Inferno, e. x si " To the summit reaching, stood To view another gap, within the round Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs. RIarvellous darkness shadow'd o'er the place. In the Venetians' arsenal as boils Through wintry months tenacious pitch; to smear Then- unsound vessels in the wintry clime. * * * * So, not by force of fire but art divine, Boil'd here a glutinous thick mass, that round Lined all the shore beneath. I that beheld, But therein not distinguisli'd, save the bubbles Raised by the boiling, and one mighty swell Heave, and by turns subsiding fall. * * * * Behind me I beheld a devil black, That running up, advanced along the rock. Ah ! what fierce cruelty his look bespake. In act how bitter did he seem, with wings Buoyant outstretch'd, and feet of nimblest tread. His shoulder, proudly eminent and sharp. Was with a sinner charged; by either haunch He held him, the foot's smew griping fast. * * * " * Him dashing down, o'er the rough rock he turn'd; Nor ever after thief a mastilf loosed Sped with like eager haste. That other sank, And forthwith writhing to the surface rose. But those dark demons, shrouded by the bridge. Cried — Here the hallow'd visage saves not : here Is other swimming than in Serchio's wave, Wherefore, if thou desire we rend thee not. Take heed tliou mount not o'er the pitch. This said. They grappled him with more than hundred hooks, And shouted— Cover'd thou must sport thee liere ; So, if tliou canst, in secret mayst thou filch." Gary's Dante, c. xxi Fraught as his imagination was with gloomy ideas, with images of horror, it is the fidelity of his descriptions, the minute reality of his pictures, which gives them their terrible power. He knew well what it is that penetrates the soul. His images of horror in the infernal regions were all founded on those familiar tc HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO. 389 every one in the upper world ; it was from the caldron of boiling pitch in the arsenal of Venice that he took his idea of one of the pits of Malebolge. But ■what a picture does he there exhibit ! The writhing sinner plunged headlong into the boiling waves, rising to the surface, and a hundred demons, mocking his sufferings, and with outstretched hooks tear- ing his tlesh till he dived again beneath the liquid fire ! It is the reality of the scene, the images familiar yet magnified in horror, Avhich constitutes its power: we stand by; our flesh creeps as it would at witnessing an auto-da-fe of Castile, or on beholding a victim perishing under the knout in Russia. Michael Angelo was, in one sense, the painter of the Old Testament, as his bold and aspiring genius aimed rather at delineating the events of warfare, passion, or suflering, chronicled in the records of the Jews, than the scenes of love, affection, and benevolence, depicted in the gospels. But his mind was not formed merely on the events recorded in antiquity: it is no world doubtful of the im- mortality of the soul which he depicts. He is rather the personification in painting of the soul of Dante. His imagination was evident- ly fraught with the conceptions of the Inferno. The expression of mind beams forth in all his works. Vehement passion, stern resolve, un- daunted valour, sainted devotion, infant inno- cence, alternately occupied his pencil. It is hard to say in which he was greatest. In all his works we see marks of the genius of an- tiquity meeting the might of modern times: the imagery of mythology blended with the aspirations of Christianity. We see it in the dome of St. Peter's, we see it in the statue of Moses. Grecian sculpture was the realization in form of the conceptions of Homer; Italian painting the representation on canvas of the revelations of the gospel, which Dante clothed in the garb of poetry. Future ages should ever strive to equal, but can never hope to excel them. Never did artist work with more persever- ing vigour than Michael Angelo. He himself said that he laboured harder for fame, than ever poor artist did for bread. Born of a no- ble familj', the heir to considerable posses- sions, he took to the arts from his earliest years from enthusiastic passion and conscious power. During a long life of ninety years, he prosecuted them with the ardent zeal of youth. He was consumed by the thirst for fame, the desire of great achievements, the invariable mark of heroic minds; and which, as it is altogether beyond the reach of ihe great bulk of mankind, so is the feeling of all others which to them is most incomprehensible. Nor was that noble enthusiasm without its reward. It was his extraordinary good for- tune to be called to form, at the same time, the Last Judgment on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, the glorious dome of St. Peter's, and the group of Notre Dame de Pitii-, which now adorns the chapel of the Crucifix, undrr the roof of that august edifice. The " Holy Fami- ly" in the Palazzo Pitti at Florence, and the "Three Fates" in the same collection, give an i-iea of his powers in oil-painting: thus he carried to the highest perfection, at the same time, the rival arts of architecture, sculpture, fresco and oil painting.* He may truly be called the founder of Italian painting, as Homer was of the ancient epic, and Dante of the great style in modern poetry. None but a colossal mind could have done such things. Raphael took lessons from him in painting, and professed through life the most unbounded respect for his great preceptor. None have attempted to approach him in architecture ; the cupola of St. Pater's stands alone in the world. But notwithstanding all this, Michael An- gelo had some defects. He created the great stj'le in painting, a style which has made mo- dern Italy as immortal as the arms of the le- gions did the ancient. But the very grandeur of his conceptions, the vigour of his drawing, his incomparable command of bone and mus- cle, his lofty expression and impassioned mind, made him neglect, and perhaps despise, the lesser details of his art. A^rdent in the pursuit of expression, he often overlooked execution. When he painted the Last Judgment or the Fall of the Titans in fresco, on the ceiling and Avails of the Sistine Chapel, he was incom- parable; but that gigantic style was unsuita- ble for lesser pictures or rooms of ordinary proportions. By the study of his masterpieces, subsequent painters have often been led astray; they have aimed at force of expression to the neglect of delicacy in execution. This defect is, in an especial manner, conspicuous .in Sir Joshua Reynolds, who worshipped Michael Angelo with the most devoted fervour ; and through him it has descended to Lawrence, and nearly the whole modern school of Eng- land. When we see Sir Joshua's noble glass window in Magdalen College, Oxford, we be- hold the work of a worthy pupil of Michael Angelo; we see the great style of painting in its proper place, and applied to its appropriate object. But when we compare his portraits, or imaginary pieces, in oil, with those of Ti- tian, Velasquez, or Vandyke, the inferiority is manifest. It is not in the design but the finishing; not in the conception but the exe- cution. The colours are frequently raw and harsh ; the details or distant parts of the piece ill-finished or neglected. The bold neglect of Michael Angelo is very apparent. Raphael, with less original genius than his immortal master, had more taste and much greater deli- cacy of pencil ; his conceptions, less extensive and varied, are more poricrt; his finishing is always exquisite. Unity of emotion was his great object in design; equal delicacy of finishing in execution. Thence he has at- tained by universal consent the highest place in painting. "Nothing," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "is denied to well-directed labour; nothing is to be attained without it." " Excellence in any ♦ The finest design ever conrcivptl hy Mirtiacl Anpcio was a rarlonii ri'pri.'S(Miliiii.' warriors liathiiii;, and some liiirklincoii their armour at the sound of Die Iriiinpet, wliirli smninoned tlicni to Ilieir standards in the wax bi-twcen I'isa and rioronce. 't perished, however, in tlic troiihli-M of the lallor rily ; but an encraved copv remains of part, wliich justifies the enlogiuius bcstoweO upon it. 890 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. department," says Johnson, "can now be at- tained only by the labour of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price." These words should ever be present to the minds of all who aspire to rival the great of former days ; who feel in their bosoms a spark of the spirit which led Homer, Dante, and Michael Angelo to immortality. In a luxurious age, comfort or station is deemed the chief good of life ; in a commercial community, money becomes the universal object of ambition. Thence our ac- knowledged deficiency in the fine arts ; thence our growing weakness iu the higher branches of literature. Talent looks for its reward too soon. Genius seeks an immediate recom- pense: long protracted exertions are never attempted : great things are not done, because great efforts are not made. None will work now v/ithout the prospect of an immediate return. Very possibly it is so ; but then let us not hope or wish for iminor- tality. "Present time and future," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "are rivals; he who solicits the one, must expect to be discountenanced by the other." It is not that we want genius ; what we want is the great and heroic spirit which will devote itself, by strenuous efforts, to great things, without seeking any reward but their accomplishment. Nor let it be said that great subjects for the painter's pencil, the poet's muse, are not to be found — that they are exhausted by former ef- forts, and nothing remains to us but imitation. Nature is inexhaustible ; the events of men are unceasing, their variety is endless. Philoso- phers were mourning the monotony of time, historians were deploring the sameness of events, in the years preceding the French Re- volution — on the eve of the Reign of Terror, the flames of Moscow, the retreat from Russia. What was the strife around Troy to the battle of Leipsic? — the contests of Florence and Pisa to the revolutionary war 1 What ancient naval victory to that of Trafalgar"? Rely upon it, subjects for genius are not wanting ; genius itself, steadily and perseveringly directed, is the thing required. But genius and energy alone are not sufficient; courage and disin- terestedness are needed more than all. Cou- rage to withstand the assaults of envy, to despise the ridicule of mediocrity — disinterest- edness to trample under foot the seductions of ease, and disregard the attractions of opulence. An heroic mind is more wanted in the library or the studio, than in the field. It is wealth and cowardice which extinguish the light of genius, and dig the grave of literature as of nations THE END. 890 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS, department," says Johnson, "can now be at- tained only by the labour of a lifetime ; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price." These words should ever be present to the minds of all who aspire to rival the great of former days ; who feel in their bosoms a spark of the spirit which led Homer, Dante, and Michael Angelo to immortality. In a luxurious age, comfort or station is deemed the chief good of life ; in a commercial community, money becomes the universal object of ambition. Thence our ac- knowledged deficiency in the fine arts ; thence our growing weakness in the higher branches of literature. Talent looks for its reward too soon. Genius seeks an immediate recom- pense: long protracted exertions are never attempted : great things are not done, because great efforts are not made. None will work noAv v/ithout the prospect of an immediate return. Very possibly it is so ; but then let us not hope or wish for immor- tality. "Present time and future," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "are rivals; he who solicits the one, must expeci to be discountenanced by the other." It is not that we want genius ; vdiat we want is the great and heroic spirit which will devote itself, by strenuous eSbrts, to great things, without seeking any reward but their acc-omplishment. Nor let it be said that great subjects for the painter's pencil, the poet's muse, are not to be found — that they are exhausted by former ef- forts, and nothing remains to us but imitation. Nature is inexhaustible ; the events of men are unceasing, their \'ariety is endless. Philoso- phers were mourning the monotony of time, historians were deploring the sameness of events, in the years preceding the French Re- volution — on the eve of the Reign of Terror, the flames of Moscow, the retreat from Russia. What was the strife around Troy to the battle of Leipsic? — the contests of Florence and Pisa to the revolutionary war 1 What ancient naval victory to that of Trafalgar? Rely upon it, subjects for genius are not wanting ; genius itself, steadily and perseveringly directed, is the thing required. But genius and energy alone are not sufficient; courage and disin- terestedness are needed more than all. Cou- rage to withstand the assaults of envy, to despise the ridicule of mediocrit}^ — disinterest- edness to trample under foot the seductions of ease, and disregard the attractions of opulence. An heroic mind is more wanted in the library or the studio, than in the field. It is wealth and cowardice which extinguish the light of genius, and dig the grave of literature as of nations THE END. i -^S4i^/.r°^2« CENTS I^D21-l00m-7,'40 (69368) « , ^==^ i'li V ^ % -: '^**^es-^ \x