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and wild speculations and antiquated prejudices, on the whole population of Europe. There has been an excitement and a conflict to which there is nothing parallel in the history of all past generations; and it may be said, perhaps, without any great extravagance, that during the few years that have elapsed since the breaking out of the French revolution, men have thought and acted, and sinned and suffered, more than in all the ages that have passed since their creation. In that short period, every thing has been questioned -every thing has been suggested-and every thing has been tried. There is scarcely any conceivable combination of circumstances under which men have not been obliged to act, and to anticipate and to suffer the consequences of their acting. The most insane imaginations-the most fantastic theories -the most horrible abominations, have all been reduced to practice, and taken seriously upon trial. Nothing is now left, it would appear, to be projected or attempted in government. We have ascertained experimentally the consequences of all extremes; and exhausted, in the real history of twenty-five years, all the problems that can be supplied by the whole science of politics.

Something must have been learned from this great condensation of experience ;-some leading propositions, either positive or negative, must have been established in the course of it :-and although we perhaps are as yet too near the tumult and agitation of the catastrophe, to be able to judge with precision of their positive value and amount, we can hardly be mistaken as to their general tendency and import. The clearest and most indisputable result is, that the prodigious advances made by the body of the people, throughout the better part of Europe, in wealth, consideration, and intelligence, had rendered the ancient institutions and exclusions of the old continental governments altogether unsuitable to their actual condition; that public opinion had tacitly acquired a commanding and uncontrollable power in every enlightened community; and that, to render its operation in any degree safe, or consistent with a regular plan of administration, it was absolutely necessary to contrive some means for letting it act directly on the machine of government, and for bringing it regularly and openly to bear on the public counsels of the country. This was not necessary while the bulk of the people were poor, abject, and brutish,-and the nobles alone had either education, property, or acquaintance with affairs; and it was during that period that the institutions were adopted which were maintained too long for the peace and the credit of the world. Public opinion overthrew those in France; and the shock was felt in every feudal monarchy in Europe. But this sudden extrication of a noble and beneficent principle, produced, at first, far greater evils than those which had proceeded from its repression. "The extravagant and erring spirit" was not yet enshrined in any fitting organisation; and, acting without balance or control, threw the whole mass of society into wilder and more terrible disorder than had ever been experienced before its disclosure. It was then tried to compress it again into inactivity by violence and intimidation; but it could not be so over-mastered, nor laid to rest by all the powerful conjurations of the reign of terror; and, after a long and painful struggle under the pressure of a military despotism, it has again broken loose, and pointed at last to the natural and appropriate remedy, of embodying it in a free representative constitution, through the mediation of which it may diffuse life and vigour through every member of society.

The true theory of that great revolution, therefore, is that it was produced

by the repression or practical disregard of public opinion, and that the evils with which it was attended, were occasioned by the want of any institution to control and regulate the application of that opinion to the actual management of affairs and the grand moral that may be gathered from the whole eventful history seems therefore to be, that in an enlightened period of society, no government can be either prosperous or secure, which does not provide for expressing and giving effect to the general sense of the community. This, it must be owned, is a lesson worth buying at some cost:-and, looking back on the enormous price we have paid for it, it is no slight gratification to perceive, that it seems not only to have been emphatically taught, but effectually learned. In every corner of Europe, principles of moderation and liberality are at last not only professed, but acted upon; and doctrines equally favourable to the liberty of individuals, and the independence of nations, are universally promulgated, in quarters where some little jealousy of their influence might have been both expected and excused. If any one doubts of the progress which the principles of liberty have made since the beginning of the French revolution, and of the efficacy of that lesson which its events have impressed on every court of the Continent, let him compare the conduct of the Allies at this moment, with that which they held in 1790,-let him contrast the treaty of Pilnitz with the declaration of Frankfort, and set on one hand the proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick, upon entering the French territories in 1792, and that of the Emperor of Russia on the same occasion in 1814;-let him think how La Fayette and Dumourier were treated at the former period, and what honours have been lavished on Moreau and Bernadotte in the latter-or, without dwelling on particulars, let him ask himself, whether it would have been tolerated among the loyal Antigallicans of that day, to have proposed, in a moment of victory, that a representative assembly should share the powers of legislation with the sovereign that the noblesse should renounce all their privileges, except such as were purely honorary-that citizens of all ranks should be equally eligible to all employment-that all the officers and dignitaries of the revolutionary government should retain their rank-that the nation should be taxed only by its representatives-that all sorts of national property should be ratified, and that perfect toleration in religion, liberty of the press, and trial by jury should be established. Such, however, are the chief bases of that constitution, which was cordially approved of by the allied sovereigns after they were in possession of Paris; and, with reference to which, their august chief made that remarkable declaration, in the face of Europe," that France stood in need of strong institutions, and such as were suited to the intelligence of the age.'

Such is the improved creed of modern courts, as to civil liberty and the rights of individuals. With regard to national justice and independence, again,-is there any so romantic as to believe, that if the allied sovereigns had dissipated the armies of the republic, and entered the metropolis as conquerors in 1792, they would have left to France all her ancient territories, or religiously abstained from interfering in the settlement of her government, or treated her baffled warriors and statesmen with honourable courtesies, and her humbled and guilty chief with magnanimous forbearance and clemency? The conduct we have just witnessed, in all these particulars, is wise and prudent, no doubt, as well as magnanimous; and the splendid successes which have crowned the arms of the present deliverers of Europe, may be ascribed even more to the temper than to the force with which they have been wielded;

certainly more to the plain justice and rationality of the cause in which they were raised, than to either. Yet those very successes exclude all supposition of this justice and liberality being assumed out of fear or necessity; and establish the sincerity of those professions, which it would, no doubt, have been the best of all policy at any rate to have made. It is equally decisive, however, of the merit of the agents and of the principles, that the most liberal maxims were held out by the most decided victors; and the greatest honours paid to civil and to national freedom, when it was most in their power to have crushed the one and invaded the other. Nothing, in short, can account for the altered tone and altered policy of the great sovereigns of the Continent, but their growing conviction of the necessity of regulated freedom to the peace and prosperity of the world—but their feeling that, in the more enlightened parts of Europe, men could no longer be governed but by their reason, and that justice and moderation were the only true safeguards of a polished throne. By this high testimony, we think, the cause of liberty is at length set up above all hazard of calumny or discountenance; and its interests, we make no doubt, will be more substantially advanced, by being thus freely and deliberately recognised in the face of Europe, by its mightiest and most absolute princes, than they could otherwise have been by all the reasonings of philosophy, and the toils of patriotism, for many successive generations.

While this is the universal feeling among those who have the best opportunity and the strongest interest to form a just opinion on the subject, it is not a little strange and mortifying, that there should still be a party in this country, who consider those great transactions under a very different aspect; -who look with jealousy and grudging upon all that has been done for the advancement of freedom, and think the splendour of the late events considerably tarnished by those stipulations for national liberty, which form to other eyes their most glorious and happy feature. We do not say this invidiously, nor out of any spirit of faction; but the fact is unquestionable;and it is worth while both to record, and to try to account for it. An arrangement, which satisfies all the arbitrary Sovereigns of Europe, and is cordially adopted by the Monarch who is immediately affected by it,-is objected to us as too democratical, by a party in this free country! The Autocrat of all the Russias-the Imperial Chief of the Germanic principalities-the Military Sovereign of Prussia,-are all agreed, that France should have a free government; nay, the King of France himself is thoroughly persuaded of the same great truth;—and all the world rejoices at its ultimate acknowledgment-except only the Tories of England! They cannot conceal their mortification at this final triumph of the popular cause; and while they rejoice at the restoration of the King to the throne of his ancestors, and the recall of his loyal nobility to their ancient honours, are evidently not a little hurt at the advantages which have been at the same time secured to the people. They are very glad, certainly, to see Louis XVIII. on the throne of Napoleon, but they would have liked him better if he had not spoken so graciously to the Marshals of the Revolution,-if he had not so freely accepted the constitution which restrained his prerogative,-nor so cordially held out the hand of conciliation to all descriptions of his subjects;-if he had been less magnanimous in short, less prudent, and less amiable. It would have answered better to their ideas of a glorious restoration, if it could have been accomplished without any condition; and if the Prince had thrown himself entirely into the hands of those bigoted emigrants, who affect

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In their eyes,

to be displeased with his acceptance of a limited crown.
the thing would have been more complete, if the noblesse had been re-
stored at once to all their feudal privileges, and the church to its ancient
endowments. And we cannot help suspecting, that they think the loss of
those vain and oppressive trappings, but ill compensated by the increased
dignity and worth of the whole population, by the equalisation of essential
rights, and the provision made for the free enjoyment of life, property, and
conscience.

Perhaps we exaggerate a little in our representation of sentiments in which we do not at all concur :-but certainly, in conversation, and in common newspapers-those light straws that best show how the wind sits-one hears and sees, every day, things that approach at least to the spirit we have attempted to delineate, and afford no slight presumption of the prevalence of such opinions as we lament. In lamenting them, however, we would not indiscriminately blame.-They are not all to be ascribed to a spirit of servility, or a disregard of the happiness of mankind. Here, as in other heresies, there is an intermixture of errors that are to be pardoned, and principles that are to be loved. There are patriotic prejudices, and illusions of the imagination, and misconceptions from ignorance, at the bottom of this unnatural antipathy to freedom in the citizens of a free land, as well as more sordid interests and more wilful perversions. Some sturdy Englishmen are staunch for our monopoly of liberty; and feel as if it was an insolent invasion of British privileges, for any other nation to set up a free constitution. Others apprehend serious dangers to our greatness, if this mainspring and fountain of our prosperity be communicated to other lands. A still greater proportion, we believe, are influenced by considerations yet more fantastical. They have been so long used to consider the old government of France as the perfect model of a feudal monarchy, softened and adorned by the refinements of modern society, that they are quite sorry to part with so fine a specimen of chivalrous manners and institutions; and look upon it, with all its characteristic and imposing accompaniments of a brilliant and warlike nobility,-a gallant court, a gorgeous hierarchy,a gay and familiar vassalage, with the same sort of feelings with which they would be apt to regard the sumptuous pageantry and splendid solemnities of the Romish ritual. They are very good Protestants themselves, and know too well the value of religious truth and liberty, to wish for any less simple or more imposing system at home; but they have no objection that it should exist among their neighbours, that their taste may be gratified by the magnificent spectacles it affords, and their imaginations warmed with the ideas of venerable and pompous antiquity, which it is so well fitted to suggest. The case is nearly the same with their ideas of the old French monarchy. They have read Burke, till their fancies are somewhat heated with the picturesque image of tempered royalty and polished aristocracy, which he has held out in his splendid pictures of France as it was before the revolution; and have been so long accustomed to contrast those comparatively happy and prosperous days with the horrors and vulgar atrocities that ensued, that they forget the many real evils and oppressions of which that brilliant monarchy was productive, and think that the succeeding abominations cannot be completely expiated till it be restored as it originally existed.

All these, and we believe many other illusions of a similar nature, slight and fanciful as they may appear, contribute largely, we have no doubt, to that pardonable feeling of dislike to the limitation of the old monarchy,

which we conceive to be very discernible in a certain part of our population. The great source of that feeling, however, and that which gives root and nourishment to all the rest, is the ignorance which prevails in this country, both of the evils of arbitrary government, and of the radical change in the feelings and opinions of the Continent, which has rendered it no longer practicable in its more enlightened quarters, Our insular situation, and the measure of freedom we enjoy, have done us this injury, along with the infinite good of which they have been the occasions. We do not know either the extent of the misery and weakness produced by tyranny, or the force and prevalence of the conviction which has recently arisen, where they are best known, that they are no longer to be tolerated. On the Continent, experience has at last done far more to enlighten public opinion upon these subjects, than reflection and reasoning in this island. There, nations have been found irresistible when the popular feeling was consulted; and absolutely impotent and indefensible where it had been outraged and disregarded; and this necessity of consulting the general opinion, has led, on both sides, to a great relaxation of many of the principles on which they originally went to issue. Of this change in the terms of the question-and especially of the great abatement which it had been found necessary to make in the pretensions of the old governments, we were generally but little aware in this country. Spectators as we have been of the distant and protracted contest between ancient institutions and authorities on the one hand, and democratical innovation on the other, we still look upon the parties to that contest, as occupying nearly the same positions and maintaining the same principles that they did at the beginning; while those who are nearer to the scene of action, or themselves partakers of the toil, are aware that, in the course of that long conflict, each party has been obliged to recede from some of its pretensions, and to admit, in some degree, the justice of those that are made against it. Here, where we have been but too apt to consider the mighty game which has been playing in our sight, and partly at our expense, as an occasion for exercising our own party animosities, or seeking illustrations for our peculiar theories of government, we are still diametrically opposed, and as keen in our hostilities, as ever. The controversy with us being in a great measure speculative, would lose its interest and attraction, if any thing like a compromise were admitted; and we choose, therefore, to shut our eyes to the great and visible approximation into which time, and experience, and necessity, have forced the actual combatants. We verily believe that, except in the imaginations of English politicians, there no longer exist in the world any such aristocrats and democrats as actually divided all Europe in the early days of the French revolution. In this country, however, we still speak and feel as if they existed; and the champions of aristocracy, in particular, continue, with very few exceptions, both to maintain pretensions that their principals have long abandoned, and to impute to their adversaries, absurdities with which they have long ceased to be chargeable. To them, therefore, no other alternative has yet presented itself but the absolute triumph of one or other of two opposite and irreconcileable extremes. Whatever is taken from the sovereign, they consider as being given to crazy republicans; and very naturally dislike all limitations of the royal power, because they are unable to distinguish them from usurpations by the avowed enemies of all subordination. That the real state of things has long been extremely different, men of reflection might have concluded from the known principles of human nature, and men of information must have

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