THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS AND SPEECHES OF LORD MACAULAY. 

Contributions To The Edinburgh Review

By Thomas Babington Macaulay

VOLUME II. 

CONTENTS. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 

John Dryden. (January 1828. )

History. (May 1828. )

Mill on Government. (March 1829. )

Westminster Reviewer's Defence of Mill. (June 1829. )

Utilitarian Theory of Government. (October 1829. )

Sadler's Law of Population. (July 1830. )

Sadler's Refutation Refuted. (January 1831. )

Mirabeau. (July 1832. )

Barere. (April 1844. )

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF LORD MACAULAY. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 

JOHN DRYDEN. (January 1828. )

 "The Poetical Works of John Dryden". In 2 volumes. University Edition. London, 1826. 

The public voice has assigned to Dryden the first place in thesecond rank of our poets, --no mean station in a table of intellectualprecedency so rich in illustrious names. It is allowed that, even ofthe few who were his superiors in genius, none has exercised a moreextensive or permanent influence on the national habits of thought andexpression. His life was commensurate with the period during whicha great revolution in the public taste was effected; and in thatrevolution he played the part of Cromwell. By unscrupulously taking thelead in its wildest excesses, he obtained the absolute guidance of it. By trampling on laws, he acquired the authority of a legislator. Bysignalising himself as the most daring and irreverent of rebels, heraised himself to the dignity of a recognised prince. He commenced hiscareer by the most frantic outrages. He terminated it in the repose ofestablished sovereignty, --the author of a new code, the root of a newdynasty. 

Of Dryden, however, as of almost every man who has been distinguishedeither in the literary or in the political world, it may be said thatthe course which he pursued, and the effect which he produced, dependedless on his personal qualities than on the circumstances in which he wasplaced. Those who have read history with discrimination know the fallacyof those panegyrics and invectives which represent individualsas effecting great moral and intellectual revolutions, subvertingestablished systems, and imprinting a new character on their age. Thedifference between one man and another is by no means so great as thesuperstitious crowd supposes. But the same feelings which in ancientRome produced the apotheosis of a popular emperor, and in modern Romethe canonisation of a devout prelate, lead men to cherish an illusionwhich furnishes them with something to adore. By a law of association, from the operation of which even minds the most strictly regulatedby reason are not wholly exempt, misery disposes us to hatred, andhappiness to love, although there may be no person to whom our miseryor our happiness can be ascribed. The peevishness of an invalid ventsitself even on those who alleviate his pain. The good humour of a manelated by success often displays itself towards enemies. In thesame manner, the feelings of pleasure and admiration, to which thecontemplation of great events gives birth, make an object where theydo not find it. Thus, nations descend to the absurdities of Egyptianidolatry, and worship stocks and reptiles--Sacheverells and Wilkeses. They even fall prostrate before a deity to which they have themselvesgiven the form which commands their veneration, and which, unlessfashioned by them, would have remained a shapeless block. They persuadethemselves that they are the creatures of what they have themselvescreated. For, in fact, it is the age that forms the man, not the manthat forms the age. Great minds do indeed re-act on the society whichhas made them what they are; but they only pay with interest what theyhave received. We extol Bacon, and sneer at Aquinas. But, if theirsituations had been changed, Bacon might have been the Angelical Doctor, the most subtle Aristotelian of the schools; the Dominican might haveled forth the sciences from their house of bondage. If Luther had beenborn in the tenth century, he would have effected no reformation. Ifhe had never been born at all, it is evident that the sixteenth centurycould not have elapsed without a great schism in the church. Voltaire, in the days of Louis the Fourteenth, would probably have been, like mostof the literary men of that time, a zealous Jansenist, eminent among thedefenders of efficacious grace, a bitter assailant of the lax moralityof the Jesuits and the unreasonable decisions of the Sorbonne. If Pascalhad entered on his literary career when intelligence was more general, and abuses at the same time more flagrant, when the church was pollutedby the Iscariot Dubois, the court disgraced by the orgies of Canillac, and the nation sacrificed to the juggles of Law, if he had lived to seea dynasty of harlots, an empty treasury and a crowded harem, an armyformidable only to those whom it should have protected, a priesthoodjust religious enough to be intolerant, he might possibly, like everyman of genius in France, have imbibed extravagant prejudices againstmonarchy and Christianity. The wit which blasted the sophisms ofEscobar--the impassioned eloquence which defended the sisters of PortRoyal--the intellectual hardihood which was not beaten down even byPapal authority--might have raised him to the Patriarchate of thePhilosophical Church. It was long disputed whether the honour ofinventing the method of Fluxions belonged to Newton or to Leibnitz. Itis now generally allowed that these great men made the same discoveryat the same time. Mathematical science, indeed, had then reached sucha point that, if neither of them had ever existed, the principle mustinevitably have occurred to some person within a few years. So in ourown time the doctrine of rent, now universally received by politicaleconomists, was propounded, almost at the same moment, by two writersunconnected with each other. Preceding speculators had long beenblundering round about it; and it could not possibly have been missedmuch longer by the most heedless inquirer. We are inclined to thinkthat, with respect to every great addition which has been made tothe stock of human knowledge, the case has been similar; that withoutCopernicus we should have been Copernicans, --that without ColumbusAmerica would have been discovered, --that without Locke we should havepossessed a just theory of the origin of human ideas. Society indeed hasits great men and its little men, as the earth has its mountains and itsvalleys. But the inequalities of intellect, like the inequalities of thesurface of our globe, bear so small a proportion to the mass, that, incalculating its great revolutions, they may safely be neglected. The sunilluminates the hills, while it is still below the horizon, and truth isdiscovered by the highest minds a little before it becomes manifest tothe multitude. This is the extent of their superiority. They are thefirst to catch and reflect a light, which, without their assistance, must, in a short time, be visible to those who lie far beneath them. 

The same remark will apply equally to the fine arts. The laws on whichdepend the progress and decline of poetry, painting, and sculpture, operate with little less certainty than those which regulate theperiodical returns of heat and cold, of fertility and barrenness. Thosewho seem to lead the public taste are, in general, merely outrunningit in the direction which it is spontaneously pursuing. Without a justapprehension of the laws to which we have alluded the merits and defectsof Dryden can be but imperfectly understood. We will, therefore, statewhat we conceive them to be. 

The ages in which the master-pieces of imagination have been producedhave by no means been those in which taste has been most correct. Itseems that the creative faculty, and the critical faculty, cannot existtogether in their highest perfection. The causes of this phenomenon itis not difficult to assign. 

It is true that the man who is best able to take a machine to pieces, and who most clearly comprehends the manner in which all its wheels andsprings conduce to its general effect, will be the man most competent toform another machine of similar power. In all the branches of physicaland moral science which admit of perfect analysis, he who can resolvewill be able to combine. But the analysis which criticism can effectof poetry is necessarily imperfect. One element must for ever elude itsresearches; and that is the very element by which poetry is poetry. Inthe description of nature, for example, a judicious reader will easilydetect an incongruous image. But he will find it impossible to explainin what consists the art of a writer who, in a few words, brings somespot before him so vividly that he shall know it as if he had livedthere from childhood; while another, employing the same materials, the same verdure, the same water, and the same flowers, committingno inaccuracy, introducing nothing which can be positively pronouncedsuperfluous, omitting nothing which can be positively pronouncednecessary, shall produce no more effect than an advertisement of acapital residence and a desirable pleasure-ground. To take anotherexample: the great features of the character of Hotspur are obvious tothe most superficial reader. We at once perceive that his courage issplendid, his thirst of glory intense, his animal spirits high, histemper careless, arbitrary, and petulant; that he indulges his ownhumour without caring whose feelings he may wound, or whose enmity hemay provoke, by his levity. Thus far criticism will go. But somethingis still wanting. A man might have all those qualities, and every otherquality which the most minute examiner can introduce into his catalogueof the virtues and faults of Hotspur, and yet he would not beHotspur. Almost everything that we have said of him applies equallyto Falconbridge. Yet in the mouth of Falconbridge most of his speecheswould seem out of place. In real life this perpetually occurs. We aresensible of wide differences between men whom, if we were required todescribe them, we should describe in almost the same terms. If we wereattempting to draw elaborate characters of them, we should scarcelybe able to point out any strong distinction; yet we approach them withfeelings altogether dissimilar. We cannot conceive of them as usingthe expressions or the gestures of each other. Let us suppose that azoologist should attempt to give an account of some animal, a porcupinefor instance, to people who had never seen it. The porcupine, he mightsay, is of the class mammalia, and the order glires. There are whiskerson its face; it is two feet long; it has four toes before, five behind, two fore teeth, and eight grinders. Its body is covered with hair andquills. And, when all this has been said, would any one of the auditorshave formed a just idea of a porcupine? Would any two of them haveformed the same idea? There might exist innumerable races of animals, possessing all the characteristics which have been mentioned yetaltogether unlike to each other. What the description of our naturalistis to a real porcupine, the remarks of criticism are to the imagesof poetry. What it so imperfectly decomposes it cannot perfectlyreconstruct. It is evidently as impossible to produce an Othello or aMacbeth by reversing an analytical process so defective, as it wouldbe for an anatomist to form a living man out of the fragments of hisdissecting-room. In both cases the vital principle eludes the finestinstruments, and vanishes in the very instant in which its seat istouched. Hence those who, trusting to their critical skill, attempt towrite poems give us, not images of things, but catalogues of qualities. Their characters are allegories--not good men and bad men, but cardinalvirtues and deadly sins. We seem to have fallen among the acquaintancesof our old friend Christian: sometimes we meet Mistrust and Timorous;sometimes Mr Hate-good and Mr Love-lust; and then again Prudence, Pietyand Charity. 

That critical discernment is not sufficient to make men poets, isgenerally allowed. Why it should keep them from becoming poets, is notperhaps equally evident; but the fact is, that poetry requires not anexamining but a believing frame of mind. Those feel it most, and writeit best, who forget that it is a work of art; to whom its imitations, like the realities from which they are taken, are subjects, not forconnoisseurship, but for tears and laughter, resentment and affection;who are too much under the influence of the illusion to admire thegenius which has produced it; who are too much frightened for Ulyssesin the cave of Polyphemus to care whether the pun about Outis be goodor bad; who forget that such a person as Shakspeare ever existed, whilethey weep and curse with Lear. It is by giving faith to the creationsof the imagination that a man becomes a poet. It is by treating thosecreations as deceptions, and by resolving them, as nearly as possible, into their elements, that he becomes a critic. In the moment in whichthe skill of the artist is perceived, the spell of the art is broken. 

These considerations account for the absurdities into which the greatestwriters have fallen, when they have attempted to give general rules forcomposition, or to pronounce judgment on the works of others. They areunaccustomed to analyse what they feel; they, therefore, perpetuallyrefer their emotions to causes which have not in the slightest degreetended to produce them. They feel pleasure in reading a book. Theynever consider that this pleasure may be the effect of ideas whichsome unmeaning expression, striking on the first link of a chain ofassociations, may have called up in their own minds--that they havethemselves furnished to the author the beauties which they admire. 

Cervantes is the delight of all classes of readers. Every school-boythumbs to pieces the most wretched translations of his romance, andknows the lantern jaws of the Knight Errant, and the broad cheeks ofthe Squire, as well as the faces of his own playfellows. The mostexperienced and fastidious judges are amazed at the perfection of thatart which extracts inextinguishable laughter from the greatest of humancalamities without once violating the reverence due to it; at thatdiscriminating delicacy of touch which makes a character exquisitelyridiculous, without impairing its worth, its grace, or its dignity. InDon Quixote are several dissertations on the principles of poetic anddramatic writing. No passages in the whole work exhibit stronger marksof labour and attention; and no passages in any work with which weare acquainted are more worthless and puerile. In our time they wouldscarcely obtain admittance into the literary department of the MorningPost. Every reader of the Divine Comedy must be struck by the venerationwhich Dante expresses for writers far inferior to himself. He will notlift up his eyes from the ground in the presence of Brunetto, all whoseworks are not worth the worst of his own hundred cantos. He doesnot venture to walk in the same line with the bombastic Statius. Hisadmiration of Virgil is absolute idolatry. If, indeed, it had beenexcited by the elegant, splendid, and harmonious diction of the Romanpoet, it would not have been altogether unreasonable; but it israther as an authority on all points of philosophy, than as a work ofimagination, that he values the Aeneid. The most trivial passages heregards as oracles of the highest authority, and of the most reconditemeaning. He describes his conductor as the sea of all wisdom--the sunwhich heals every disordered sight. As he judged of Virgil, the Italiansof the fourteenth century judged of him; they were proud of him; theypraised him; they struck medals bearing his head; they quarrelled forthe honour of possessing his remains; they maintained professorsto expound his writings. But what they admired was not that mightyimagination which called a new world into existence, and made all itssights and sounds familiar to the eye and ear of the mind. They saidlittle of those awful and lovely creations on which later criticsdelight to dwell--Farinata lifting his haughty and tranquil brow fromhis couch of everlasting fire--the lion-like repose of Sordello--or thelight which shone from the celestial smile of Beatrice. They extolledtheir great poet for his smattering of ancient literature and history;for his logic and his divinity; for his absurd physics, and his mostabsurd metaphysics; for everything but that in which he pre-eminentlyexcelled. Like the fool in the story, who ruined his dwelling by diggingfor gold, which, as he had dreamed, was concealed under its foundations, they laid waste one of the noblest works of human genius, by seeking init for buried treasures of wisdom which existed only in their own wildreveries. The finest passages were little valued till they had beendebased into some monstrous allegory. Louder applause was given tothe lecture on fate and free-will, or to the ridiculous astronomicaltheories, than to those tremendous lines which disclose the secretsof the tower of hunger, or to that half-told tale of guilty love, sopassionate and so full of tears. 

We do not mean to say that the contemporaries of Dante read with lessemotion than their descendants of Ugolino groping among the wastedcorpses of his children, or of Francesca starting at the tremulous kissand dropping the fatal volume. Far from it. We believe that they admiredthese things less than ourselves, but that they felt them more. Weshould perhaps say that they felt them too much to admire them. Theprogress of a nation from barbarism to civilisation produces a changesimilar to that which takes place during the progress of an individualfrom infancy to mature age. What man does not remember with regret thefirst time that he read Robinson Crusoe? Then, indeed, he was unableto appreciate the powers of the writer; or, rather, he neither knew norcared whether the book had a writer at all. He probably thought it nothalf so fine as some rant of Macpherson about dark-browed Foldath, and white-bosomed Strinadona. He now values Fingal and Temora only asshowing with how little evidence a story may be believed, and withhow little merit a book may be popular. Of the romance of Defoe heentertains the highest opinion. He perceives the hand of a master in tenthousand touches which formerly he passed by without notice. But, thoughhe understands the merits of the narrative better than formerly, he isfar less interested by it. Xury, and Friday, and pretty Poll, the boatwith the shoulder-of-mutton sail, and the canoe which could not bebrought down to the water edge, the tent with its hedge and ladders, thepreserve of kids, and the den where the old goat died, can never againbe to him the realities which they were. The days when his favouritevolume set him upon making wheel-barrows and chairs, upon digging cavesand fencing huts in the garden, can never return. Such is the law of ournature. Our judgment ripens; our imagination decays. We cannot at onceenjoy the flowers of the spring of life and the fruits of its autumn, the pleasures of close investigation and those of agreeable error. Wecannot sit at once in the front of the stage and behind the scenes. Wecannot be under the illusion of the spectacle, while we are watching themovements of the ropes and pulleys which dispose it. 

The chapter in which Fielding describes the behaviour of Partridge atthe theatre affords so complete an illustration of our proposition, thatwe cannot refrain from quoting some parts of it. 

"Partridge gave that credit to Mr Garrick which he had denied to Jones, and fell into so violent a trembling that his knees knocked against eachother. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether he was afraid ofthe warrior upon the stage?--'O, la, sir, ' said he, 'I perceive now itis what you told me. I am not afraid of anything, for I know it is buta play; and if it was really a ghost, it could do one no harm at such adistance and in so much company; and yet, if I was frightened, I am notthe only person. '--'Why, who, ' cries Jones, 'dost thou take to be sucha coward here besides thyself?'--'Nay, you may call me a coward if youwill; but if that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, Inever saw any man frightened in my life'. .. He sat with his eyes fixedpartly on the ghost and partly on Hamlet, and with his mouth open; thesame passions which succeeded each other in Hamlet, succeeding likewisein him. .. 

"Little more worth remembering occurred during the play, at the end ofwhich Jones asked him which of the players he liked best? To this heanswered, with some appearance of indignation at the question, 'TheKing, without doubt. '--'Indeed, Mr Partridge, ' says Mrs Miller, 'youare not of the same opinion with the town; for they are all agreed thatHamlet is acted by the best player who was ever on the stage. '--'He thebest player!' cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer; 'why I couldact as well as he myself. I am sure if I had seen a ghost, I should havelooked in the very same manner, and done just as he did. And then to besure, in that scene, as you called it, between him and his mother, whereyou told me he acted so fine, why any man, that is, any good man, thathad such a mother, would have done exactly the same. I know you areonly joking with me; but indeed, madam, though I never was at a play inLondon, yet I have seen acting before in the country, and the King formy money; he speaks all his words distinctly, and half as loud again asthe other. Anybody may see he is an actor. '"

In this excellent passage Partridge is represented as a very badtheatrical critic. But none of those who laugh at him possess the titheof his sensibility to theatrical excellence. He admires in the wrongplace; but he trembles in the right place. It is indeed because he isso much excited by the acting of Garrick, that he ranks him below thestrutting, mouthing performer, who personates the King. So, we haveheard it said that, in some parts of Spain and Portugal, an actor whoshould represent a depraved character finely, instead of calling downthe applauses of the audience, is hissed and pelted without mercy. It would be the same in England, if we, for one moment, thought thatShylock or Iago was standing before us. While the dramatic art was inits infancy at Athens, it produced similar effects on the ardent andimaginative spectators. It is said that they blamed Aeschylus forfrightening them into fits with his Furies. Herodotus tells us that, when Phyrnichus produced his tragedy on the fall of Miletus, they finedhim in a penalty of a thousand drachmas for torturing their feelings byso pathetic an exhibition. They did not regard him as a great artist, but merely as a man who had given them pain. When they woke from thedistressing illusion, they treated the author of it as they would havetreated a messenger who should have brought them fatal and alarmingtidings which turned out to be false. In the same manner, a childscreams with terror at the sight of a person in an ugly mask. He hasperhaps seen the mask put on. But his imagination is too strong for hisreason; and he entreats that it may be taken off. 

We should act in the same manner if the grief and horror produced in usby works of the imagination amounted to real torture. But in us theseemotions are comparatively languid. They rarely affect our appetite orour sleep. They leave us sufficiently at ease to trace them to theircauses, and to estimate the powers which produce them. Our attention isspeedily diverted from the images which call forth our tears to the artby which those images have been selected and combined. We applaud thegenius of the writer. We applaud our own sagacity and sensibility; andwe are comforted. 

Yet, though we think that in the progress of nations towards refinementthe reasoning powers are improved at the expense of the imagination, weacknowledge that to this rule there are many apparent exceptions. Weare not, however, quite satisfied that they are more than apparent. Menreasoned better, for example, in the time of Elizabeth than in the timeof Egbert; and they also wrote better poetry. But we must distinguishbetween poetry as a mental act, and poetry as a species of composition. If we take it in the latter sense, its excellence depends not solely onthe vigour of the imagination, but partly also on the instruments whichthe imagination employs. Within certain limits, therefore, poetry may beimproving while the poetical faculty is decaying. The vividness of thepicture presented to the reader is not necessarily proportioned to thevividness of the prototype which exists in the mind of the writer. Inthe other arts we see this clearly. Should a man, gifted by nature withall the genius of Canova, attempt to carve a statue without instructionas to the management of his chisel, or attention to the anatomy ofthe human body, he would produce something compared with which theHighlander at the door of a snuff shop would deserve admiration. If anuninitiated Raphael were to attempt a painting, it would be a mere daub;indeed, the connoisseurs say that the early works of Raphael are littlebetter. Yet, who can attribute this to want of imagination? Who candoubt that the youth of that great artist was passed amidst an idealworld of beautiful and majestic forms? Or, who will attribute thedifference which appears between his first rude essays and hismagnificent Transfiguration to a change in the constitution of hismind? In poetry, as in painting and sculpture, it is necessary thatthe imitator should be well acquainted with that which he undertakes toimitate, and expert in the mechanical part of his art. Genius will notfurnish him with a vocabulary: it will not teach him what word mostexactly corresponds to his idea, and will most fully convey it toothers: it will not make him a great descriptive poet, till he haslooked with attention on the face of nature; or a great dramatist, till he has felt and witnessed much of the influence of the passions. Information and experience are, therefore, necessary; not for thepurpose of strengthening the imagination, which is never so strong as inpeople incapable of reasoning--savages, children, madmen, anddreamers; but for the purpose of enabling the artist to communicate hisconceptions to others. 

In a barbarous age the imagination exercises a despotic power. So strongis the perception of what is unreal that it often overpowers all thepassions of the mind and all the sensations of the body. At first, indeed, the phantasm remains undivulged, a hidden treasure, a wordlesspoetry, an invisible painting, a silent music, a dream of which thepains and pleasures exist to the dreamer alone, a bitterness which theheart only knoweth, a joy with which a stranger intermeddleth not. Themachinery, by which ideas are to be conveyed from one person to another, is as yet rude and defective. Between mind and mind there is a greatgulf. The imitative arts do not exist, or are in their lowest state. But the actions of men amply prove that the faculty which gives birthto those arts is morbidly active. It is not yet the inspiration of poetsand sculptors; but it is the amusement of the day, the terror of thenight, the fertile source of wild superstitions. It turns the cloudsinto gigantic shapes, and the winds into doleful voices. The beliefwhich springs from it is more absolute and undoubting than any which canbe derived from evidence. It resembles the faith which we repose in ourown sensations. Thus, the Arab, when covered with wounds, saw nothingbut the dark eyes and the green kerchief of a beckoning Houri. TheNorthern warrior laughed in the pangs of death when he thought of themead of Valhalla. 

The first works of the imagination are, as we have said, poor and rude, not from the want of genius, but from the want of materials. Phidiascould have done nothing with an old tree and a fish-bone, or Homer withthe language of New Holland. 

Yet the effect of these early performances, imperfect as they mustnecessarily be, is immense. All deficiencies are supplied by thesusceptibility of those to whom they are addressed. We all know whatpleasure a wooden doll, which may be bought for sixpence, will affordto a little girl. She will require no other company. She will nurse it, dress it, and talk to it all day. No grown-up man takes half so muchdelight in one of the incomparable babies of Chantrey. In the samemanner, savages are more affected by the rude compositions of theirbards than nations more advanced in civilisation by the greatestmaster-pieces of poetry. 

In process of time, the instruments by which the imagination works arebrought to perfection. Men have not more imagination than their rudeancestors. We strongly suspect that they have much less. But theyproduce better works of imagination. Thus, up to a certain period, thediminution of the poetical powers is far more than compensated by theimprovement of all the appliances and means of which those powersstand in need. Then comes the short period of splendid and consummateexcellence. And then, from causes against which it is vain to struggle, poetry begins to decline. The progress of language, which was at firstfavourable, becomes fatal to it, and, instead of compensating for thedecay of the imagination, accelerates that decay, and renders it moreobvious. When the adventurer in the Arabian tale anointed one of hiseyes with the contents of the magical box, all the riches of the earth, however widely dispersed, however sacredly concealed, became visible tohim. But, when he tried the experiment on both eyes, he was struckwith blindness. What the enchanted elixir was to the sight of the body, language is to the sight of the imagination. At first it calls upa world of glorious allusions; but, when it becomes too copious, italtogether destroys the visual power. 

As the development of the mind proceeds, symbols, instead of beingemployed to convey images, are substituted for them. Civilised men thinkas they trade, not in kind, but by means of a circulating medium. Inthese circumstances, the sciences improve rapidly, and criticism amongthe rest; but poetry, in the highest sense of the word, disappears. Thencomes the dotage of the fine arts, a second childhood, as feeble as theformer, and far more hopeless. This is the age of critical poetry, ofpoetry by courtesy, of poetry to which the memory, the judgment, and thewit contribute far more than the imagination. We readily allow that manyworks of this description are excellent: we will not contend with thosewho think them more valuable than the great poems of an earlier period. We only maintain that they belong to a different species of composition, and are produced by a different faculty. 

It is some consolation to reflect that this critical school of poetryimproves as the science of criticism improves; and that the scienceof criticism, like every other science, is constantly tending towardsperfection. As experiments are multiplied, principles are betterunderstood. 

In some countries, in our own for example, there has been an intervalbetween the downfall of the creative school and the rise of thecritical, a period during which imagination has been in its decrepitude, and taste in its infancy. Such a revolutionary interregnum as this willbe deformed by every species of extravagance. 

The first victory of good taste is over the bombast and conceits whichdeform such times as these. But criticism is still in a very imperfectstate. What is accidental is for a long time confounded with what isessential. General theories are drawn from detached facts. How manyhours the action of a play may be allowed to occupy, --how many similesan Epic Poet may introduce into his first book, --whether a piece, whichis acknowledged to have a beginning and an end, may not be without amiddle, and other questions as puerile as these, formerly occupied theattention of men of letters in France, and even in this country. Poets, in such circumstances as these, exhibit all the narrowness andfeebleness of the criticism by which their manner has been fashioned. From outrageous absurdity they are preserved indeed by their timidity. But they perpetually sacrifice nature and reason to arbitrary canons oftaste. In their eagerness to avoid the mala prohibita of a foolishcode, they are perpetually rushing on the mala in se. Their greatpredecessors, it is true, were as bad critics as themselves, or perhapsworse, but those predecessors, as we have attempted to show, wereinspired by a faculty independent of criticism, and, therefore, wrotewell while they judged ill. 

In time men begin to take more rational and comprehensive views ofliterature. The analysis of poetry, which, as we have remarked, must atbest be imperfect, approaches nearer and nearer to exactness. The meritsof the wonderful models of former times are justly appreciated. Thefrigid productions of a later age are rated at no more than their propervalue. Pleasing and ingenious imitations of the manner of the greatmasters appear. Poetry has a partial revival, a Saint Martin's Summer, which, after a period of dreariness and decay, agreeably reminds usof the splendour of its June. A second harvest is gathered in; though, growing on a spent soil, it has not the heart of the former. Thus, inthe present age, Monti has successfully imitated the style of Dante;and something of the Elizabethan inspiration has been caught by severaleminent countrymen of our own. But never will Italy produce anotherInferno, or England another Hamlet. We look on the beauties of themodern imaginations with feelings similar to those with which we seeflowers disposed in vases, to ornament the drawing-rooms of a capital. We doubtless regard them with pleasure, with greater pleasure, perhaps, because, in the midst of a place ungenial to them, they remind us of thedistant spots on which they flourish in spontaneous exuberance. But wemiss the sap, the freshness, and the bloom. Or, if we may borrow anotherillustration from Queen Scheherezade, we would compare the writersof this school to the jewellers who were employed to complete theunfinished window of the palace of Aladdin. Whatever skill or cost coulddo was done. Palace and bazaar were ransacked for precious stones. Yetthe artists, with all their dexterity, with all their assiduity, andwith all their vast means, were unable to produce anything comparableto the wonders which a spirit of a higher order had wrought in a singlenight. 

The history of every literature with which we are acquainted confirms, we think, the principles which we have laid down. In Greece we seethe imaginative school of poetry gradually fading into the critical. Aeschylus and Pindar were succeeded by Sophocles, Sophocles byEuripides, Euripides by the Alexandrian versifiers. Of these last, Theocritus alone has left compositions which deserve to be read. Thesplendour and grotesque fairyland of the Old Comedy, rich with suchgorgeous hues, peopled with such fantastic shapes, and vocal alternatelywith the sweetest peals of music and the loudest bursts of elvishlaughter, disappeared forever. The master-pieces of the New Comedy areknown to us by Latin translations of extraordinary merit. From thesetranslations, and from the expressions of the ancient critics, it isclear that the original compositions were distinguished by grace andsweetness, that they sparkled with wit, and abounded with pleasingsentiment; but that the creative power was gone. Julius Caesar calledTerence a half Menander, --a sure proof that Menander was not a quarterAristophanes. 

The literature of the Romans was merely a continuation of the literatureof the Greeks. The pupils started from the point at which their mastershad, in the course of many generations arrived. They thus almost whollymissed the period of original invention. The only Latin poets whosewritings exhibit much vigour of imagination are Lucretius and Catullus. The Augustan age produced nothing equal to their finer passages. 

In France that licensed jester, whose jingling cap and motley coatconcealed more genius than ever mustered in the saloon of Ninon or ofMadame Geoffrin, was succeeded by writers as decorous and as tiresome asgentlemen ushers. 

The poetry of Italy and of Spain has undergone the same change. Butnowhere has the revolution been more complete and violent than inEngland. The same person who, when a boy, had clapped his thrillinghands at the first representation of the Tempest might, withoutattaining to a marvellous longevity, have lived to read the earlierworks of Prior and Addison. The change, we believe, must, sooner orlater, have taken place. But its progress was accelerated, and itscharacter modified, by the political occurrences of the times, andparticularly by two events, the closing of the theatres under theCommonwealth, and the restoration of the House of Stuart. 

We have said that the critical and poetical faculties are not onlydistinct, but almost incompatible. The state of our literature duringthe reigns of Elizabeth and James the First is a strong confirmation ofthis remark. The greatest works of imagination that the world has everseen were produced at that period. The national taste, in the meantime, was to the last degree detestable. Alliterations, puns, antitheticalforms of expression lavishly employed where no corresponding oppositionexisted between the thoughts expressed, strained allegories, pedanticallusions, everything, in short, quaint and affected, in matter andmanner, made up what was then considered as fine writing. The eloquenceof the bar, the pulpit, and the council-board, was deformed by conceitswhich would have disgraced the rhyming shepherds of an Italian academy. The king quibbled on the throne. We might, indeed, console ourselves byreflecting that his majesty was a fool. But the chancellor quibbled inconcert from the wool-sack: and the chancellor was Francis Bacon. Itis needless to mention Sidney and the whole tribe of Euphuists; forShakspeare himself, the greatest poet that ever lived, falls into thesame fault whenever he means to be particularly fine. While he abandonshimself to the impulse of his imagination, his compositions are not onlythe sweetest and the most sublime, but also the most faultless, that theworld has ever seen. But, as soon as his critical powers come into play, he sinks to the level of Cowley; or rather he does ill what Cowley didwell. All that is bad in his works is bad elaborately, and of maliceaforethought. The only thing wanting to make them perfect was, that heshould never have troubled himself with thinking whether they weregood or not. Like the angels in Milton, he sinks "with compulsion andlaborious flight. " His natural tendency is upwards. That he may soar, itis only necessary that he should not struggle to fall. He resembles anAmerican Cacique, who, possessing in unmeasured abundance the metalswhich in polished societies are esteemed the most precious, was utterlyunconscious of their value, and gave up treasures more valuable than theimperial crowns of other countries, to secure some gaudy and far-fetchedbut worthless bauble, a plated button, or a necklace of coloured glass. 

We have attempted to show that, as knowledge is extended and as thereason develops itself, the imitative arts decay. We should, therefore, expect that the corruption of poetry would commence in the educatedclasses of society. And this, in fact, is almost constantly the case. The few great works of imagination which appear in a critical age are, almost without exception, the works of uneducated men. Thus, at atime when persons of quality translated French romances, and when theuniversities celebrated royal deaths in verses about tritons and fauns, a preaching tinker produced the Pilgrim's Progress. And thus a ploughmanstartled a generation which had thought Hayley and Beattie great poets, with the adventures of Tam O'Shanter. Even in the latter part of thereign of Elizabeth the fashionable poetry had degenerated. It retainedfew vestiges of the imagination of earlier times. It had not yet beensubjected to the rules of good taste. Affectation had completely taintedmadrigals and sonnets. The grotesque conceits and the tuneless numbersof Donne were, in the time of James, the favourite models of compositionat Whitehall and at the Temple. But, though the literature of the Courtwas in its decay, the literature of the people was in its perfection. The Muses had taken sanctuary in the theatres, the haunts of a classwhose taste was not better than that of the Right Honourables andsingular good Lords who admired metaphysical love-verses, but whoseimagination retained all its freshness and vigour; whose censure andapprobation might be erroneously bestowed, but whose tears and laughterwas never in the wrong. The infection which had tainted lyric anddidactic poetry had but slightly and partially touched the drama. Whilethe noble and the learned were comparing eyes to burning-glasses, andtears to terrestrial globes, coyness to an enthymeme, absence to a pairof compasses, and an unrequited passion to the fortieth remainder-man inan entail, Juliet leaning from the balcony, and Miranda smiling over thechess-board, sent home many spectators, as kind and simple-heartedas the master and mistress of Fletcher's Ralpho, to cry themselves tosleep. 

No species of fiction is so delightful to us as the old English drama. Even its inferior productions possess a charm not to be found in anyother kind of poetry. It is the most lucid mirror that ever was held upto nature. The creations of the great dramatists of Athens produce theeffect of magnificent sculptures, conceived by a mighty imagination, polished with the utmost delicacy, embodying ideas of ineffable majestyand beauty, but cold, pale, and rigid, with no bloom on the cheek, andno speculation in the eye. In all the draperies, the figures, and thefaces, in the lovers and the tyrants, the Bacchanals and the Furies, there is the same marble chillness and deadness. Most of the charactersof the French stage resemble the waxen gentlemen and ladies in thewindow of a perfumer, rouged, curled, and bedizened, but fixed insuch stiff attitudes, and staring with eyes expressive of such utterunmeaningness, that they cannot produce an illusion for a single moment. In the English plays alone is to be found the warmth, the mellowness, and the reality of painting. We know the minds of men and women, as weknow the faces of the men and women of Vandyke. 

The excellence of these works is in a great measure the result oftwo peculiarities, which the critics of the French school consider asdefects, --from the mixture of tragedy and comedy, and from the lengthand extent of the action. The former is necessary to render the dramaa just representation of a world in which the laughers and weepers areperpetually jostling each other, --in which every event has itsserious and ludicrous side. The latter enables us to form an intimateacquaintance with characters with which we could not possibly becomefamiliar during the few hours to which the unities restrict the poet. In this respect, the works of Shakspeare, in particular, are miraclesof art. In a piece, which may be read aloud in three hours, we see acharacter gradually unfold all its recesses to us. We see it change withthe change of circumstances. The petulant youth rises into the politicand warlike sovereign. The profuse and courteous philanthropist soursinto a hater and scorner of his kind. The tyrant is altered, by thechastening of affliction, into a pensive moralist. The veteran general, distinguished by coolness, sagacity, and self-command, sinks under aconflict between love strong as death, and jealousy cruel as the grave. The brave and loyal subject passes, step by step, to the extremitiesof human depravity. We trace his progress, from the first dawnings ofunlawful ambition to the cynical melancholy of his impenitent remorse. Yet, in these pieces, there are no unnatural transitions. Nothing isomitted: nothing is crowded. Great as are the changes, narrow as is thecompass within which they are exhibited, they shock us as little as thegradual alterations of those familiar faces which we see every eveningand every morning. The magical skill of the poet resembles that of theDervise in the Spectator, who condensed all the events of seven yearsinto the single moment during which the king held his head under thewater. 

It is deserving of remark, that, at the time of which we speak, theplays even of men not eminently distinguished by genius, --such, forexample, as Jonson, --were far superior to the best works of imaginationin other departments. Therefore, though we conceive that, from causeswhich we have already investigated, our poetry must necessarily havedeclined, we think that, unless its fate had been accelerated byexternal attacks, it might have enjoyed an euthanasia, that genius mighthave been kept alive by the drama till its place could, in some degree, be supplied by taste, --that there would have been scarcely any intervalbetween the age of sublime invention and that of agreeable imitation. The works of Shakspeare, which were not appreciated with any degree ofjustice before the middle of the eighteenth century, might then havebeen the recognised standards of excellence during the latter part ofthe seventeenth; and he and the great Elizabethan writers might havebeen almost immediately succeeded by a generation of poets similar tothose who adorn our own times. 

But the Puritans drove imagination from its last asylum. They prohibitedtheatrical representations, and stigmatised the whole race of dramatistsas enemies of morality and religion. Much that is objectionable may befound in the writers whom they reprobated; but whether they took thebest measures for stopping the evil appears to us very doubtful, andmust, we think, have appeared doubtful to themselves, when, after thelapse of a few years, they saw the unclean spirit whom they had cast outreturn to his old haunts, with seven others fouler than himself. 

By the extinction of the drama, the fashionable school of poetry, --aschool without truth of sentiment or harmony of versification, --withoutthe powers of an earlier, or the correctness of a later age, --was leftto enjoy undisputed ascendency. A vicious ingenuity, a morbid quicknessto perceive resemblances and analogies between things apparentlyheterogeneous, constituted almost its only claim to admiration. Sucklingwas dead. Milton was absorbed in political and theological controversy. If Waller differed from the Cowleian sect of writers, he differed forthe worse. He had as little poetry as they, and much less wit; nor isthe languor of his verses less offensive than the ruggedness of theirs. In Denham alone the faint dawn of a better manner was discernible. 

But, low as was the state of our poetry during the civil war and theProtectorate, a still deeper fall was at hand. Hitherto our literaturehad been idiomatic. In mind as in situation we had been islanders. Therevolutions in our taste, like the revolutions in our government, hadbeen settled without the interference of strangers. Had this state ofthings continued, the same just principles of reasoning which, aboutthis time, were applied with unprecedented success to every part ofphilosophy would soon have conducted our ancestors to a sounder code ofcriticism. There were already strong signs of improvement. Our prosehad at length worked itself clear from those quaint conceits which stilldeformed almost every metrical composition. The parliamentary debates, and the diplomatic correspondence of that eventful period, hadcontributed much to this reform. In such bustling times, it wasabsolutely necessary to speak and write to the purpose. The absurditiesof Puritanism had, perhaps, done more. At the time when that odiousstyle, which deforms the writings of Hall and of Lord Bacon, was almostuniversal, had appeared that stupendous work, the English Bible, --a bookwhich, if everything else in our language should perish, would alonesuffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power. The respectwhich the translators felt for the original prevented them from addingany of the hideous decorations then in fashion. The groundwork of theversion, indeed, was of an earlier age. The familiarity with which thePuritans, on almost every occasion, used the Scriptural phrases was nodoubt very ridiculous; but it produced good effects. It was a cant; butit drove out a cant far more offensive. 

The highest kind of poetry is, in a great measure, independent of thosecircumstances which regulate the style of composition in prose. But withthat inferior species of poetry which succeeds to it the case is widelydifferent. In a few years, the good sense and good taste which hadweeded out affectation from moral and political treatises would, in thenatural course of things, have effected a similar reform in the sonnetand the ode. The rigour of the victorious sectaries had relaxed. A dominant religion is never ascetic. The Government connived attheatrical representations. The influence of Shakspeare was once morefelt. But darker days were approaching. A foreign yoke was to be imposedon our literature. Charles, surrounded by the companions of his longexile, returned to govern a nation which ought never to have cast himout or never to have received him back. Every year which he had passedamong strangers had rendered him more unfit to rule his countrymen. In France he had seen the refractory magistracy humbled, and royalprerogative, though exercised by a foreign priest in the name ofa child, victorious over all opposition. This spectacle naturallygratified a prince to whose family the opposition of Parliaments hadbeen so fatal. Politeness was his solitary good quality. The insultswhich he had suffered in Scotland had taught him to prize it. Theeffeminacy and apathy of his disposition fitted him to excel in it. Theelegance and vivacity of the French manners fascinated him. With thepolitical maxims and the social habits of his favourite people, headopted their taste in composition, and, when seated on the throne, soonrendered it fashionable, partly by direct patronage, but still more bythat contemptible policy, which, for a time, made England the last ofthe nations, and raised Louis the Fourteenth to a height of power andfame, such as no French sovereign had ever before attained. 

It was to please Charles that rhyme was first introduced into our plays. Thus, a rising blow, which would at any time have been mortal, wasdealt to the English Drama, then just recovering from its languishingcondition. Two detestable manners, the indigenous and the imported, werenow in a state of alternate conflict and amalgamation. The bombasticmeanness of the new style was blended with the ingenious absurdity ofthe old; and the mixture produced something which the world had neverbefore seen, and which, we hope, it will never see again, --something, by the side of which the worst nonsense of all other ages appears toadvantage--something, which those who have attempted to caricature ithave, against their will, been forced to flatter--of which the tragedyof Bayes is a very favourable specimen. What Lord Dorset observedto Edward Howard might have been addressed to almost all hiscontemporaries--

 "As skilful divers to the bottom fall Swifter than those who cannot swim at all; So, in this way of writing without thinking, Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking. "

From this reproach some clever men of the world must be excepted, andamong them Dorset himself. Though by no means great poets, or even goodversifiers, they always wrote with meaning, and sometimes with wit. Nothing indeed more strongly shows to what a miserable state literaturehad fallen, than the immense superiority which the occasional rhymes, carelessly thrown on paper by men of this class, possess over theelaborate productions of almost all the professed authors. The reigningtaste was so bad, that the success of a writer was in inverse proportionto his labour, and to his desire of excellence. An exception must bemade for Butler, who had as much wit and learning as Cowley, and whoknew, what Cowley never knew, how to use them. A great command of goodhomely English distinguishes him still more from the other writers ofthe time. As for Gondibert, those may criticise it who can read it. Imagination was extinct. Taste was depraved. Poetry, driven frompalaces, colleges, and theatres, had found an asylum in the obscuredwelling where a Great Man, born out of due season, in disgrace, penury, pain and blindness, still kept uncontaminated a character and a geniusworthy of a better age. 

Everything about Milton is wonderful; but nothing is so wonderful asthat, in an age so unfavourable to poetry, he should have produced thegreatest of modern epic poems. We are not sure that this is not insome degree to be attributed to his want of sight. The imagination isnotoriously most active when the external world is shut out. In sleepits illusions are perfect. They produce all the effect of realities. Indarkness its visions are always more distinct than in the light. Everyperson who amuses himself with what is called building castles in theair must have experienced this. We know artists who, before they attemptto draw a face from memory, close their eyes, that they may recall amore perfect image of the features and the expression. We are thereforeinclined to believe that the genius of Milton may have been preservedfrom the influence of times so unfavourable to it by his infirmity. Be this as it may, his works at first enjoyed a very small share ofpopularity. To be neglected by his contemporaries was the penalty whichhe paid for surpassing them. His great poem was not generally studied oradmired till writers far inferior to him had, by obsequiously cringingto the public taste, acquired sufficient favour to reform it. 

Of these, Dryden was the most eminent. Amidst the crowd of authors who, during the earlier years of Charles the Second, courted notorietyby every species of absurdity and affectation, he speedily becameconspicuous. No man exercised so much influence on the age. The reasonis obvious. On no man did the age exercise so much influence. He wasperhaps the greatest of those whom we have designated as the criticalpoets; and his literary career exhibited, on a reduced scale, thewhole history of the school to which he belonged, --the rudeness andextravagance of its infancy, --the propriety, the grace, the dignifiedgood sense, the temperate splendour of its maturity. His imaginationwas torpid, till it was awakened by his judgment. He began with quaintparallels and empty mouthing. He gradually acquired the energy of thesatirist, the gravity of the moralist, the rapture of the lyric poet. The revolution through which English literature has been passing, fromthe time of Cowley to that of Scott, may be seen in miniature within thecompass of his volumes. 

His life divides itself into two parts. There is some debatable groundon the common frontier; but the line may be drawn with tolerableaccuracy. The year 1678 is that on which we should be inclined to fixas the date of a great change in his manner. During the preceding periodappeared some of his courtly panegyrics--his Annus Mirabilis, and mostof his plays; indeed, all his rhyming tragedies. To the subsequentperiod belong his best dramas, --All for Love, the Spanish Friar, andSebastian, --his satires, his translations, his didactic poems, hisfables, and his odes. 

Of the small pieces which were presented to chancellors and princes itwould scarcely be fair to speak. The greatest advantage which the FineArts derive from the extension of knowledge is, that the patronage ofindividuals becomes unnecessary. Some writers still affect to regret theage of patronage. None but bad writers have reason to regret it. It isalways an age of general ignorance. Where ten thousand readers are eagerfor the appearance of a book, a small contribution from each makes upa splendid remuneration for the author. Where literature is a luxury, confined to few, each of them must pay high. If the Empress Catherine, for example, wanted an epic poem, she must have wholly supportedthe poet;--just as, in a remote country village, a man who wants amuttonchop is sometimes forced to take the whole sheep;--a thing whichnever happens where the demand is large. But men who pay largely for thegratification of their taste, will expect to have it united with somegratification to their vanity. Flattery is carried to a shamelessextent; and the habit of flattery almost inevitably introduces afalse taste into composition. Its language is made up of hyperbolicalcommonplaces, --offensive from their triteness, --still more offensivefrom their extravagance. In no school is the trick of overstepping themodesty of nature so speedily acquired. The writer, accustomed to findexaggeration acceptable and necessary on one subject, uses it on all. Itis not strange, therefore, that the early panegyrical verses of Drydenshould be made up of meanness and bombast. They abound with the conceitswhich his immediate predecessors had brought into fashion. But hislanguage and his versification were already far superior to theirs. 

The Annus Mirabilis shows great command of expression, and a fine earfor heroic rhyme. Here its merits end. Not only has it no claim to becalled poetry, but it seems to be the work of a man who could never, byany possibility, write poetry. Its affected similes are the best partof it. Gaudy weeds present a more encouraging spectacle than utterbarrenness. There is scarcely a single stanza in this long work to whichthe imagination seems to have contributed anything. It is produced, notby creation, but by construction. It is made up, not of pictures, but ofinferences. We will give a single instance, and certainly a favourableinstance, --a quatrain which Johnson has praised. Dryden is describingthe sea-fight with the Dutch--

 "Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball; And now their odours armed against them fly. Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall, And some by aromatic splinters die. "

The poet should place his readers, as nearly as possible, in thesituation of the sufferers or the spectators. His narration ought toproduce feelings similar to those which would be excited by the eventitself. Is this the case here? Who, in a sea-fight, ever thought of theprice of the china which beats out the brains of a sailor; or of theodour of the splinter which shatters his leg? It is not by an act of theimagination, at once calling up the scene before the interior eye, butby painful meditation, --by turning the subject round and round, --bytracing out facts into remote consequences, --that these incongruoustopics are introduced into the description. Homer, it is true, perpetually uses epithets which are not peculiarly appropriate. Achilles is the swift-footed, when he is sitting still. Ulysses is themuch-enduring, when he has nothing to endure. Every spear casts a longshadow, every ox has crooked horns, and every woman a high bosom, thoughthese particulars may be quite beside the purpose. In our old ballads asimilar practice prevails. The gold is always red, and the ladies alwaysgay, though nothing whatever may depend on the hue of the gold, or thetemper of the ladies. But these adjectives are mere customary additions. They merge in the substantives to which they are attached. If they atall colour the idea, it is with a tinge so slight as in no respectto alter the general effect. In the passage which we have quoted fromDryden the case is very different. "Preciously" and "aromatic" divertour whole attention to themselves, and dissolve the image of the battlein a moment. The whole poem reminds us of Lucan, and of the worst partsof Lucan, --the sea-fight in the Bay of Marseilles, for example. Thedescription of the two fleets during the night is perhaps the onlypassage which ought to be exempted from this censure. If it was fromthe Annus Mirabilis that Milton formed his opinion, when he pronouncedDryden a good rhymer but no poet, he certainly judged correctly. ButDryden was, as we have said, one of those writers in whom the period ofimagination does not precede, but follow, the period of observation andreflection. 

His plays, his rhyming plays in particular, are admirable subjects forthose who wish to study the morbid anatomy of the drama. He was utterlydestitute of the power of exhibiting real human beings. Even in the farinferior talent of composing characters out of those elements intowhich the imperfect process of our reason can resolve them, he was verydeficient. His men are not even good personifications; they are notwell-assorted assemblages of qualities. Now and then, indeed, he seizesa very coarse and marked distinction, and gives us, not a likeness, buta strong caricature, in which a single peculiarity is protruded, andeverything else neglected; like the Marquis of Granby at an inn-door, whom we know by nothing but his baldness; or Wilkes, who is Wilkes onlyin his squint. These are the best specimens of his skill. For most ofhis pictures seem, like Turkey carpets, to have been expressly designednot to resemble anything in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, orin the waters under the earth. 

The latter manner he practises most frequently in his tragedies, theformer in his comedies. The comic characters are, without mixture, loathsome and despicable. The men of Etherege and Vanbrugh are badenough. Those of Smollett are perhaps worse. But they do not approachto the Celadons, the Wildbloods, the Woodalls, and the Rhodophils ofDryden. The vices of these last are set off by a certain fierce hardimpudence, to which we know nothing comparable. Their love is theappetite of beasts; their friendship the confederacy of knaves. Theladies seem to have been expressly created to form helps meet for suchgentlemen. In deceiving and insulting their old fathers they do notperhaps exceed the license which, by immemorial prescription, has beenallowed to heroines. But they also cheat at cards, rob strong boxes, putup their favours to auction, betray their friends, abuse their rivalsin the style of Billingsgate, and invite their lovers in the languageof the Piazza. These, it must be remembered, are not the valets andwaiting-women, the Mascarilles and Nerines, but the recognised heroesand heroines who appear as the representatives of good society, and who, at the end of the fifth act, marry and live very happily ever after. Thesensuality, baseness, and malice of their natures is unredeemed by anyquality of a different description, --by any touch of kindness, --or evenby any honest burst of hearty hatred and revenge. We are in a worldwhere there is no humanity, no veracity, no sense of shame, --a world forwhich any good-natured man would gladly take in exchange the society ofMilton's devils. But as soon as we enter the regions of Tragedy, we finda great change. There is no lack of fine sentiment there. Metastasiois surpassed in his own department. Scuderi is out-scuderied. We areintroduced to people whose proceedings we can trace to no motive, --ofwhose feelings we can form no more idea than of a sixth sense. We haveleft a race of creatures, whose love is as delicate and affectionateas the passion which an alderman feels for a turtle. We find ourselvesamong beings, whose love is a purely disinterested emotion, --a loyaltyextending to passive obedience, --a religion, like that of the Quietists, unsupported by any sanction of hope or fear. We see nothing butdespotism without power, and sacrifices without compensation. 

We will give a few instances. In Aurengzebe, Arimant, governor of Agra, falls in love with his prisoner Indamora. She rejects his suit withscorn; but assures him that she shall make great use of her power overhim. He threatens to be angry. She answers, very coolly:

 "Do not: your anger, like your love, is vain: Whene'er I please, you must be pleased again. Knowing what power I have your will to bend, I'll use it; for I need just such a friend. "

This is no idle menace. She soon brings a letter addressed tohis rival, --orders him to read it, --asks him whether he thinks itsufficiently tender, --and finally commands him to carry it himself. Suchtyranny as this, it may be thought, would justify resistance. Arimantdoes indeed venture to remonstrate:--

 "This fatal paper rather let me tear, Than, like Bellerophon, my sentence bear. "

The answer of the lady is incomparable:--

 "You may; but 'twill not be your best advice; 'Twill only give me pains of writing twice. You know you must obey me, soon or late. Why should you vainly struggle with your fate?"

Poor Arimant seems to be of the same opinion. He mutters something aboutfate and free-will, and walks off with the billet-doux. 

In the Indian Emperor, Montezuma presents Almeria with a garland as atoken of his love, and offers to make her his queen. She replies:--

 "I take this garland, not as given by you; But as my merit's and my beauty's due; As for the crown which you, my slave, possess, To share it with you would but make me less. "

In return for such proofs of tenderness as these, her admirer consentsto murder his two sons and a benefactor to whom he feels the warmestgratitude. Lyndaraxa, in the Conquest of Granada, assumes the same loftytone with Abdelmelech. He complains that she smiles upon his rival. 

 "Lynd. And when did I my power so far resign, That you should regulate each look of mine?

 Abdel. Then, when you gave your love, you gave that power. 

 Lynd. 'Twas during pleasure--'tis revoked this hour. 

 Abdel. I'll hate you, and this visit is my last. 

 Lynd. Do, if you can: you know I hold you fast. "

That these passages violate all historical propriety, that sentiments towhich nothing similar was ever even affected except by the cavaliers ofEurope, are transferred to Mexico and Agra, is a light accusation. Wehave no objection to a conventional world, an Illyrian puritan, or aBohemian seaport. While the faces are good, we care little about theback-ground. Sir Joshua Reynolds says that the curtains and hangingsin an historical painting ought to be, not velvet or cotton, but merelydrapery. The same principle should be applied to poetry and romance. Thetruth of character is the first object; the truth of place and time isto be considered only in the second place. Puff himself could tell theactor to turn out his toes, and remind him that Keeper Hatton wasa great dancer. We wish that, in our own time, a writer of a verydifferent order from Puff had not too often forgotten human nature inthe niceties of upholstery, millinery, and cookery. 

We blame Dryden, not because the persons of his dramas are not Moors orAmericans, but because they are not men and women;--not because love, such as he represents it, could not exist in a harem or in a wigwam, butbecause it could not exist anywhere. As is the love of his heroes, suchare all their other emotions. All their qualities, their courage, theirgenerosity, their pride, are on the same colossal scale. Justice andprudence are virtues which can exist only in a moderate degree, andwhich change their nature and their name if pushed to excess. Of justiceand prudence, therefore, Dryden leaves his favourites destitute. Hedid not care to give them what he could not give without measure. Thetyrants and ruffians are merely the heroes altered by a few touches, similar to those which transformed the honest face of Sir Roger deCoverley into the Saracen's head. Through the grin and frown theoriginal features are still perceptible. 

It is in the tragi-comedies that these absurdities strike us most. The two races of men, or rather the angels and the baboons, are therepresented to us together. We meet in one scene with nothing butgross, selfish, unblushing, lying libertines of both sexes, who, asa punishment, we suppose, for their depravity, are condemned to talknothing but prose. But, as soon as we meet with people who speak inverse, we know that we are in society which would have enraptured theCathos and Madelon of Moliere, in society for which Oroondates wouldhave too little of the lover, and Clelia too much of the coquette. 

As Dryden was unable to render his plays interesting by means of thatwhich is the peculiar and appropriate excellence of the drama, it wasnecessary that he should find some substitute for it. In his comedies hesupplied its place, sometimes by wit, but more frequently by intrigue, by disguises, mistakes of persons, dialogues at cross purposes, hair-breadth escapes, perplexing concealments, and surprisingdisclosures. He thus succeeded at least in making these pieces veryamusing. 

In his tragedies he trusted, and not altogether without reason, tohis diction and his versification. It was on this account, in allprobability, that he so eagerly adopted, and so reluctantly abandoned, the practice of rhyming in his plays. What is unnatural appears lessunnatural in that species of verse than in lines which approach morenearly to common conversation; and in the management of the heroiccouplet Dryden has never been equalled. It is unnecessary to urge anyarguments against a fashion now universally condemned. But it is worthyof observation, that, though Dryden was deficient in that talent whichblank verse exhibits to the greatest advantage, and was certainly thebest writer of heroic rhyme in our language, yet the plays which have, from the time of their first appearance, been considered as his best, are in blank verse. No experiment can be more decisive. 

It must be allowed that the worst even of the rhyming tragedies containsgood description and magnificent rhetoric. But, even when we forget thatthey are plays, and, passing by their dramatic improprieties, considerthem with reference to the language, we are perpetually disgusted bypassages which it is difficult to conceive how any author could havewritten, or any audience have tolerated, rants in which the ravingviolence of the manner forms a strange contrast with the abject tamenessof the thought. The author laid the whole fault on the audience, anddeclared that, when he wrote them, he considered them bad enough toplease. This defence is unworthy of a man of genius, and after all, isno defence. Otway pleased without rant; and so might Dryden have done, if he had possessed the powers of Otway. The fact is, that he had atendency to bombast, which, though subsequently corrected by timeand thought, was never wholly removed, and which showed itself inperformances not designed to please the rude mob of the theatre. 

Some indulgent critics have represented this failing as an indicationof genius, as the profusion of unlimited wealth, the wantonness ofexuberant vigour. To us it seems to bear a nearer affinity to thetawdriness of poverty, or the spasms and convulsions of weakness. Drydensurely had not more imagination than Homer, Dante, or Milton, whonever fall into this vice. The swelling diction of Aeschylus and Isaiahresembles that of Almanzor and Maximin no more than the tumidity of amuscle resembles the tumidity of a boil. The former is symptomaticof health and strength, the latter of debility and disease. If everShakspeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along, --when his mind is for amoment jaded, --when, as was said of Euripides, he resembles a lion, whoexcites his own fury by lashing himself with his tail. What happenedto Shakspeare from the occasional suspension of his powers happenedto Dryden from constant impotence. He, like his confederate Lee, hadjudgment enough to appreciate the great poets of the preceding age, butnot judgment enough to shun competition with them. He felt and admiredtheir wild and daring sublimity. That it belonged to another age thanthat in which he lived and required other talents than those whichhe possessed, that, in aspiring to emulate it, he was wasting, ina hopeless attempt, powers which might render him pre-eminent in adifferent career, was a lesson which he did not learn till late. Asthose knavish enthusiasts, the French prophets, courted inspiration bymimicking the writhings, swoonings, and gaspings which they consideredas its symptoms, he attempted, by affected fits of poetical fury, to bring on a real paroxysm; and, like them, he got nothing but hisdistortions for his pains. 

Horace very happily compares those who, in his time, imitated Pindarto the youth who attempted to fly to heaven on waxen wings, and whoexperienced so fatal and ignominious a fall. His own admirable goodsense preserved him from this error, and taught him to cultivate astyle in which excellence was within his reach. Dryden had not the sameself-knowledge. He saw that the greatest poets were never so successfulas when they rushed beyond the ordinary bounds, and that someinexplicable good fortune preserved them from tripping even when theystaggered on the brink of nonsense. He did not perceive that they wereguided and sustained by a power denied to himself. They wrote fromthe dictation of the imagination; and they found a response in theimaginations of others. He, on the contrary, sat down to work himself, by reflection and argument, into a deliberate wildness, a rationalfrenzy. 

In looking over the admirable designs which accompany the Faust, wehave always been much struck by one which represents the wizard and thetempter riding at full speed. The demon sits on his furious horse asheedlessly as if he were reposing on a chair. That he should keep hissaddle in such a posture, would seem impossible to any who did notknow that he was secure in the privileges of a superhuman nature. Theattitude of Faust, on the contrary, is the perfection of horsemanship. Poets of the first order might safely write as desperately asMephistopheles rode. But Dryden, though admitted to communion withhigher spirits, though armed with a portion of their power, andintrusted with some of their secrets, was of another race. What theymight securely venture to do, it was madness in him to attempt. Itwas necessary that taste and critical science should supply hisdeficiencies. 

We will give a few examples. Nothing can be finer than the descriptionof Hector at the Grecian wall:--

 o d ar esthore phaidimos Ektor, Nukti thoe atalantos upopia lampe de chalko Smerdaleo, ton eesto peri chroi doia de chersi Dour echen ouk an tis min erukakoi antibolesas, Nosphi theun, ot esalto pulas puri d osse dedeei. --Autika d oi men teichos uperbasan, oi de kat autas Poietas esechunto pulas Danaioi d ephobethen Neas ana glaphuras omados d aliastos etuchthe. 

What daring expressions! Yet how significant! How picturesque! Hectorseems to rise up in his strength and fury. The gloom of night in hisfrown, --the fire burning in his eyes, --the javelins and theblazing armour, --the mighty rush through the gates and downthe battlements, --the trampling and the infinite roar of themultitude, --everything is with us; everything is real. 

Dryden has described a very similar event in Maximin, and has done hisbest to be sublime, as follows:--

 "There with a forest of their darts he strove, And stood like Capaneus defying Jove; With his broad sword the boldest beating down, Till Fate grew pale, lest he should win the town, And turn'd the iron leaves of its dark book To make new dooms, or mend what it mistook. "

How exquisite is the imagery of the fairy-songs in the Tempest and theMidsummer Night's Dream; Ariel riding through the twilight on thebat, or sucking in the bells of flowers with the bee; or the littlebower-women of Titania, driving the spiders from the couch of the Queen!Dryden truly said, that

 "Shakspeare's magic could not copied be; Within that circle none durst walk but he. "

It would have been well if he had not himself dared to step withinthe enchanted line, and drawn on himself a fate similar to thatwhich, according to the old superstition, punished such presumptuousinterference. The following lines are parts of the song of hisfairies:--

 "Merry, merry, merry, we sail from the East, Half-tippled at a rainbow feast. In the bright moonshine, while winds whistle loud, Tivy, tivy, tivy, we mount and we fly, All racking along in a downy white cloud; And lest our leap from the sky prove too far, We slide on the back of a new falling star, And drop from above In a jelly of love. "

These are very favourable instances. Those who wish for a bad one mayread the dying speeches of Maximin, and may compare them with the lastscenes of Othello and Lear. 

If Dryden had died before the expiration of the first of the periodsinto which we have divided his literary life, he would have left areputation, at best, little higher than that of Lee or Davenant. Hewould have been known only to men of letters; and by them he would havebeen mentioned as a writer who threw away, on subjects which he wasincompetent to treat, powers which, judiciously employed, might haveraised him to eminence; whose diction and whose numbers had sometimesvery high merit, but all whose works were blemished by a false taste, and by errors of gross negligence. A few of his prologues and epiloguesmight perhaps still have been remembered and quoted. In these littlepieces he early showed all the powers which afterwards rendered him thegreatest of modern satirists. But, during the latter part of hislife, he gradually abandoned the drama. His plays appeared at longerintervals. He renounced rhyme in tragedy. His language became lessturgid--his characters less exaggerated. He did not indeed producecorrect representations of human nature; but he ceased to daub suchmonstrous chimeras as those which abound in his earlier pieces. Here andthere passages occur worthy of the best ages of the British stage. Thestyle which the drama requires changes with every change of characterand situation. He who can vary his manner to suit the variation is thegreat dramatist; but he who excels in one manner only will, when thatmanner happens to be appropriate, appear to be a great dramatist; as thehands of a watch which does not go point right once in the twelve hours. Sometimes there is a scene of solemn debate. This a mere rhetorician maywrite as well as the greatest tragedian that ever lived. We confessthat to us the speech of Sempronius in Cato seems very nearly as goodas Shakspeare could have made it. But when the senate breaks up, and wefind that the lovers and their mistresses, the hero, the villain, andthe deputy-villain, all continue to harangue in the same style, weperceive the difference between a man who can write a play and a man whocan write a speech. In the same manner, wit, a talent for description, or a talent for narration, may, for a time, pass for dramatic genius. Dryden was an incomparable reasoner in verse. He was conscious of hispower; he was proud of it; and the authors of the Rehearsal justlycharged him with abusing it. His warriors and princesses are fond ofdiscussing points of amorous casuistry, such as would have delighted aParliament of Love. They frequently go still deeper, and speculate onphilosophical necessity and the origin of evil. 

There were, however, some occasions which absolutely required thispeculiar talent. Then Dryden was indeed at home. All his best scenes areof this description. They are all between men; for the heroes of Dryden, like many other gentlemen, can never talk sense when ladies are incompany. They are all intended to exhibit the empire of reasonover violent passion. We have two interlocutors, the one eager andimpassioned, the other high, cool, and judicious. The composed andrational character gradually acquires the ascendency. His fiercecompanion is first inflamed to rage by his reproaches, then overawedby his equanimity, convinced by his arguments, and soothed by hispersuasions. This is the case in the scene between Hector and Troilus, in that between Antony and Ventidius, and in that between Sebastian andDorax. Nothing of the same kind in Shakspeare is equal to them, exceptthe quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, which is worth them all three. 

Some years before his death, Dryden altogether ceased to write for thestage. He had turned his powers in a new direction, with successthe most splendid and decisive. His taste had gradually awakened hiscreative faculties. The first rank in poetry was beyond his reach; buthe challenged and secured the most honourable place in the second. Hisimagination resembled the wings of an ostrich; it enabled him to run, though not to soar. When he attempted the highest flights, he becameridiculous; but, while he remained in a lower region, he out-strippedall competitors. 

All his natural and all his acquired powers fitted him to found a goodcritical school of poetry. Indeed he carried his reforms too far forhis age. After his death our literature retrograded; and a century wasnecessary to bring it back to the point at which he left it. The generalsoundness and healthfulness of his mental constitution, his information, of vast superficies, though of small volume, his wit scarcely inferiorto that of the most distinguished followers of Donne, his eloquence, grave, deliberate, and commanding, could not save him from disgracefulfailure as a rival of Shakspeare, but raised him far above the level ofBoileau. His command of language was immense. With him died the secretof the old poetical diction of England, --the art of producing richeffects by familiar words. In the following century it was as completelylost as the Gothic method of painting glass, and was but poorly suppliedby the laborious and tesselated imitations of Mason and Gray. On theother hand, he was the first writer under whose skilful management thescientific vocabulary fell into natural and pleasing verse. In thisdepartment, he succeeded as completely as his contemporary Gibbonssucceeded in the similar enterprise of carving the most delicate flowersfrom heart of oak. The toughest and most knotty parts of language becameductile at his touch. His versification, in the same manner, while itgave the first model of that neatness and precision which the followinggeneration esteemed so highly, exhibited at the same time, the lastexamples of nobleness, freedom, variety of pause, and cadence. Histragedies in rhyme, however worthless in themselves, had at least servedthe purpose of nonsense-verses; they had taught him all the arts ofmelody which the heroic couplet admits. For bombast, his prevailingvice, his new subjects gave little opportunity; his better tastegradually discarded it. 

He possessed, as we have said, in a pre-eminent degree the power ofreasoning in verse; and this power was now peculiarly useful to him. Hislogic is by no means uniformly sound. On points of criticism, he alwaysreasons ingeniously; and when he is disposed to be honest, correctly. But the theological and political questions which he undertook to treatin verse were precisely those which he understood least. His arguments, therefore, are often worthless. But the manner in which they are statedis beyond all praise. The style is transparent. The topics follow eachother in the happiest order. The objections are drawn up in such amanner that the whole fire of the reply may be brought to bear on them. The circumlocutions which are substituted for technical phrases areclear, neat, and exact. The illustrations at once adorn and elucidatethe reasoning. The sparkling epigrams of Cowley, and the simplegarrulity of the burlesque poets of Italy, are alternately employed, inthe happiest manner, to give effect to what is obvious or clearness towhat is obscure. 

His literary creed was catholic, even to latitudinarianism; not from anywant of acuteness, but from a disposition to be easily satisfied. He wasquick to discern the smallest glimpse of merit; he was indulgent even togross improprieties, when accompanied by any redeeming talent. When hesaid a severe thing, it was to serve a temporary purpose, --to support anargument, or to tease a rival. Never was so able a critic so freefrom fastidiousness. He loved the old poets, especially Shakspeare. Headmired the ingenuity which Donne and Cowley had so wildly abused. Hedid justice, amidst the general silence, to the memory of Milton. Hepraised to the skies the school-boy lines of Addison. Always looking onthe fair side of every object, he admired extravagance on account of theinvention which he supposed it to indicate; he excused affectationin favour of wit; he tolerated even tameness for the sake of thecorrectness which was its concomitant. 

It was probably to this turn of mind, rather than to the moredisgraceful causes which Johnson has assigned, that we are to attributethe exaggeration which disfigures the panegyrics of Dryden. No writer, it must be owned, has carried the flattery of dedication to a greaterlength. But this was not, we suspect, merely interested servility: itwas the overflowing of a mind singularly disposed to admiration, --of amind which diminished vices, and magnified virtues and obligations. Themost adulatory of his addresses is that in which he dedicates the Stateof Innocence to Mary of Modena. Johnson thinks it strange that anyman should use such language without self-detestation. But he has notremarked that to the very same work is prefixed an eulogium on Milton, which certainly could not have been acceptable at the Court of Charlesthe Second. Many years later, when Whig principles were in a greatmeasure triumphant, Sprat refused to admit a monument of John Phillipsinto Westminster Abbey--because, in the epitaph, the name of Miltonincidentally occurred. The walls of his church, he declared, should notbe polluted by the name of a republican! Dryden was attached, bothby principle and interest, to the Court. But nothing could deaden hissensibility to excellence. We are unwilling to accuse him severely, because the same disposition, which prompted him to pay so generous atribute to the memory of a poet whom his patrons detested, hurried himinto extravagance when he described a princess distinguished by thesplendour of her beauty and the graciousness of her manners. 

This is an amiable temper; but it is not the temper of great men. Wherethere is elevation of character, there will be fastidiousness. Itis only in novels and on tombstones that we meet with people who areindulgent to the faults of others, and unmerciful to their own; andDryden, at all events, was not one of these paragons. His charity wasextended most liberally to others; but it certainly began at home. Intaste he was by no means deficient. His critical works are, beyond allcomparison, superior to any which had, till then, appeared in England. They were generally intended as apologies for his own poems, rather thanas expositions of general principles; he, therefore, often attemptsto deceive the reader by sophistry which could scarcely havedeceived himself. His dicta are the dicta, not of a judge, but of anadvocate:--often of an advocate in an unsound cause. Yet, in the veryact of misrepresenting the laws of composition, he shows how well heunderstands them. But he was perpetually acting against his betterknowledge. His sins were sins against light. He trusted that what wasbad would be pardoned for the sake of what was good. What was good, hetook no pains to make better. He was not, like most persons who rise toeminence, dissatisfied even with his best productions. He had set up nounattainable standard of perfection, the contemplation of which mightat once improve and mortify him. His path was not attended by anunapproachable mirage of excellence, for ever receding, and for everpursued. He was not disgusted by the negligence of others; and heextended the same toleration to himself. His mind was of a slovenlycharacter, --fond of splendour, but indifferent to neatness. Hence mostof his writings exhibit the sluttish magnificence of a Russian noble, all vermin and diamonds, dirty linen and inestimable sables. Thosefaults which spring from affectation, time and thought in a greatmeasure removed from his poems. But his carelessness he retained to thelast. If towards the close of his life he less frequently went wrongfrom negligence, it was only because long habits of compositionrendered it more easy to go right. In his best pieces we find falserhymes, --triplets, in which the third line appears to be a mereintruder, and, while it breaks the music, adds nothing to themeaning, --gigantic Alexandrines of fourteen and sixteen syllables, and truncated verses for which he never troubled himself to find atermination or a partner. 

Such are the beauties and the faults which may be found in profusionthroughout the later works of Dryden. A more just and complete estimateof his natural and acquired powers, --of the merits of his style and ofits blemishes, --may be formed from the Hind and Panther, than from anyof his other writings. As a didactic poem, it is far superior to theReligio Laici. The satirical parts, particularly the character ofBurnet, are scarcely inferior to the best passages in Absalom andAchitophel. There are, moreover, occasional touches of a tendernesswhich affects us more, because it is decent, rational, and manly, andreminds us of the best scenes in his tragedies. His versification sinksand swells in happy unison with the subject; and his wealth oflanguage seems to be unlimited. Yet, the carelessness with which he hasconstructed his plot, and the innumerable inconsistencies into whichhe is every moment falling, detract much from the pleasure which suchvarious excellence affords. 

In Absalom and Achitophel he hit upon a new and rich vein, which heworked with signal success. They ancient satirists were the subjectsof a despotic government. They were compelled to abstain from politicaltopics, and to confine their attention to the frailties of private life. They might, indeed, sometimes venture to take liberties with public men, "Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina. "

Thus Juvenal immortalised the obsequious senators who met to decide thefate of the memorable turbot. His fourth satire frequently reminds us ofthe great political poem of Dryden; but it was not written till Domitianhad fallen: and it wants something of the peculiar flavour which belongsto contemporary invective alone. His anger has stood so long that, though the body is not impaired, the effervescence, the first cream, is gone. Boileau lay under similar restraints; and, if he had been freefrom all restraints, would have been no match for our countryman. 

The advantages which Dryden derived from the nature of his subject heimproved to the very utmost. His manner is almost perfect. The styleof Horace and Boileau is fit only for light subjects. The Frenchmandid indeed attempt to turn the theological reasonings of the ProvincialLetters into verse, but with very indifferent success. The glitter ofPope is gold. The ardour of Persius is without brilliancy. Magnificentversification and ingenious combinations rarely harmonise with theexpression of deep feeling. In Juvenal and Dryden alone we have thesparkle and the heat together. Those great satirists succeeded incommunicating the fervour of their feelings to materials the mostincombustible, and kindled the whole mass into a blaze, at once dazzlingand destructive. We cannot, indeed, think, without regret, of the partwhich so eminent a writer as Dryden took in the disputes of that period. There was, no doubt, madness and wickedness on both sides. But there wasliberty on the one, and despotism on the other. On this point, however, we will not dwell. At Talavera the English and French troops for amoment suspended their conflict, to drink of a stream which flowedbetween them. The shells were passed across from enemy to enemy withoutapprehension or molestation. We, in the same manner, would ratherassist our political adversaries to drink with us of that fountain ofintellectual pleasure, which should be the common refreshment of bothparties, than disturb and pollute it with the havoc of unseasonablehostilities. 

Macflecnoe is inferior to Absalom and Achitophel only in the subject. Inthe execution it is even superior. But the greatest work of Dryden wasthe last, the Ode on Saint Cecilia's Day. It is the masterpiece of thesecond class of poetry, and ranks but just below the great models of thefirst. It reminds us of the Pedasus of Achilles--

 os, kai thnetos eon, epeth ippois athanatoisi. 

By comparing it with the impotent ravings of the heroic tragedies we maymeasure the progress which the mind of Dryden had made. He had learnedto avoid a too audacious competition with higher natures, to keep ata distance from the verge of bombast or nonsense, to venture on noexpression which did not convey a distinct idea to his own mind. Thereis none of that "darkness visible" of style which he had formerlyaffected, and in which the greatest poets only can succeed. Everythingis definite, significant, and picturesque. His early writings resembledthe gigantic works of those Chinese gardeners who attempt to rivalnature herself, to form cataracts of terrific height and sound, toraise precipitous ridges of mountains, and to imitate in artificialplantations the vastness and the gloom of some primeval forest. Thismanner he abandoned; nor did he ever adopt the Dutch taste which Popeaffected, the trim parterres, and the rectangular walks. He ratherresembled our Kents and Browns, who imitating the great features oflandscape without emulating them, consulting the genius of the place, assisting nature and carefully disguising their art, produced, not aChamouni or a Niagara, but a Stowe or a Hagley. 

We are, on the whole, inclined to regret that Dryden did not accomplishhis purpose of writing an epic poem. It certainly would not have beena work of the highest rank. It would not have rivalled the Iliad, theOdyssey, or the Paradise Lost; but it would have been superior to theproductions of Apollonius, Lucan, or Statius, and not inferior to theJerusalem Delivered. It would probably have been a vigorous narrative, animated with something of the spirit of the old romances, enriched withmuch splendid description, and interspersed with fine declamations anddisquisitions. The danger of Dryden would have been from aiming toohigh; from dwelling too much, for example, on his angels of kingdoms, and attempting a competition with that great writer who in his owntime had so incomparably succeeded in representing to us the sights andsounds of another world. To Milton, and to Milton alone, belonged thesecrets of the great deep, the beach of sulphur, the ocean of fire, thepalaces of the fallen dominations, glimmering through the everlastingshade, the silent wilderness of verdure and fragrance where armed angelskept watch over the sleep of the first lovers, the portico of diamond, the sea of jasper, the sapphire pavement empurpled with celestial roses, and the infinite ranks of the Cherubim, blazing with adamant and gold. The council, the tournament, the procession, the crowded cathedral, thecamp, the guard-room, the chase, were the proper scenes for Dryden. 

But we have not space to pass in review all the works which Drydenwrote. We, therefore, will not speculate longer on those which he mightpossibly have written. He may, on the whole, be pronounced to have beena man possessed of splendid talents, which he often abused, and of asound judgment, the admonitions of which he often neglected; a man whosucceeded only in an inferior department of his art, but who, in thatdepartment, succeeded pre-eminently; and who with a more independentspirit, a more anxious desire of excellence, and more respect forhimself, would, in his own walk, have attained to absolute perfection. 

HISTORY. (May 1828. )

 "The Romance of History. England. " By Henry Neele. London, 1828. 

To write history respectably--that is, to abbreviate despatches, andmake extracts from speeches, to intersperse in due proportion epithetsof praise and abhorrence, to draw up antithetical characters of greatmen, setting forth how many contradictory virtues and vices they united, and abounding in "withs" and "withouts"--all this is very easy. Butto be a really great historian is perhaps the rarest of intellectualdistinctions. Many scientific works are, in their kind, absolutelyperfect. There are poems which we should be inclined to designate asfaultless, or as disfigured only by blemishes which pass unnoticed inthe general blaze of excellence. There are speeches, some speeches ofDemosthenes particularly, in which it would be impossible to alter aword without altering it for the worse. But we are acquainted withno history which approaches to our notion of what a history ought tobe--with no history which does not widely depart, either on the righthand or on the left, from the exact line. 

The cause may easily be assigned. This province of literature is adebatable land. It lies on the confines of two distinct territories. It is under the jurisdiction of two hostile powers; and, like otherdistricts similarly situated, it is ill defined, ill cultivated, and illregulated. Instead of being equally shared between its two rulers, theReason and the Imagination, it falls alternately under the sole andabsolute dominion of each. It is sometimes fiction. It is sometimestheory. 

History, it has been said, is philosophy teaching by examples. Unhappily, what the philosophy gains in soundness and depth the examplesgenerally lose in vividness. A perfect historian must possess animagination sufficiently powerful to make his narrative affecting andpicturesque. Yet he must control it so absolutely as to content himselfwith the materials which he finds, and to refrain from supplyingdeficiencies by additions of his own. He must be a profound andingenious reasoner. Yet he must possess sufficient self-command toabstain from casting his facts in the mould of his hypothesis. Those whocan justly estimate these almost insuperable difficulties will not thinkit strange that every writer should have failed, either in the narrativeor in the speculative department of history. 

It may be laid down as a general rule, though subject to considerablequalifications and exceptions, that history begins in novel and endsin essay. Of the romantic historians Herodotus is the earliest and thebest. His animation, his simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful talentfor description and dialogue, and the pure sweet flow of his language, place him at the head of narrators. He reminds us of a delightful child. There is a grace beyond the reach of affectation in his awkwardness, amalice in his innocence, an intelligence in his nonsense, an insinuatingeloquence in his lisp. We know of no writer who makes such interestfor himself and his book in the heart of the reader. At the distanceof three-and-twenty centuries, we feel for him the same sort of pityingfondness which Fontaine and Gay are said to have inspired in society. He has written an incomparable book. He has written something betterperhaps than the best history; but he has not written a good history;he is, from the first to the last chapter, an inventor. We do not hererefer merely to those gross fictions with which he has been reproachedby the critics of later times. We speak of that colouring which isequally diffused over his whole narrative, and which perpetually leavesthe most sagacious reader in doubt what to reject and what to receive. The most authentic parts of his work bear the same relation to hiswildest legends which Henry the Fifth bears to the Tempest. There wasan expedition undertaken by Xerxes against Greece; and there was aninvasion of France. There was a battle at Plataea; and there wasa battle at Agincourt. Cambridge and Exeter, the Constable and theDauphin, were persons as real as Demaratus and Pausanias. The harangueof the Archbishop on the Salic Law and the Book of Numbers differs muchless from the orations which have in all ages proceeded from the rightreverend bench than the speeches of Mardonius and Artabanus from thosewhich were delivered at the council-board of Susa. Shakspeare gives usenumerations of armies, and returns of killed and wounded, which arenot, we suspect, much less accurate than those of Herodotus. There arepassages in Herodotus nearly as long as acts of Shakspeare, in whicheverything is told dramatically, and in which the narrative serves onlythe purpose of stage-directions. It is possible, no doubt, that thesubstance of some real conversations may have been reported to thehistorian. But events which, if they ever happened, happened in ages andnations so remote that the particulars could never have been known tohim, are related with the greatest minuteness of detail. We have allthat Candaules said to Gyges, and all that passed between Astyages andHarpagus. We are, therefore, unable to judge whether, in the accountwhich he gives of transactions respecting which he might possibly havebeen well informed, we can trust to anything beyond the naked outline;whether, for example, the answer of Gelon to the ambassadors of theGrecian confederacy, or the expressions which passed between Aristidesand Themistocles at their famous interview, have been correctlytransmitted to us. The great events are, no doubt, faithfully related. So, probably, are many of the slighter circumstances; but which of themit is impossible to ascertain. The fictions are so much like the facts, and the facts so much like the fictions, that, with respect to many mostinteresting particulars, our belief is neither given nor withheld, butremains in an uneasy and interminable state of abeyance. We know thatthere is truth; but we cannot exactly decide where it lies. 

The faults of Herodotus are the faults of a simple and imaginativemind. Children and servants are remarkably Herodotean in their style ofnarration. They tell everything dramatically. Their "says hes" and "saysshes" are proverbial. Every person who has had to settle their disputesknows that, even when they have no intention to deceive, their reportsof conversation always require to be carefully sifted. If an educatedman were giving an account of the late change of administration, hewould say--"Lord Goderich resigned; and the King, in consequence, sentfor the Duke of Wellington. " A porter tells the story as if he had beenhid behind the curtains of the royal bed at Windsor: "So Lord Goderichsays, 'I cannot manage this business; I must go out. ' So theKing says, --says he, 'Well, then, I must send for the Duke ofWellington--that's all. '" This is in the very manner of the father ofhistory. 

Herodotus wrote as it was natural that he should write. He wrote for anation susceptible, curious, lively, insatiably desirous of noveltyand excitement; for a nation in which the fine arts had attained theirhighest excellence, but in which philosophy was still in its infancy. His countrymen had but recently begun to cultivate prose composition. Public transactions had generally been recorded in verse. The firsthistorians might, therefore, indulge without fear of censure in thelicense allowed to their predecessors the bards. Books were few. Theevents of former times were learned from tradition and from popularballads; the manners of foreign countries from the reports oftravellers. It is well known that the mystery which overhangs what isdistant, either in space or time, frequently prevents us from censuringas unnatural what we perceive to be impossible. We stare at a dragoonwho has killed three French cuirassiers, as a prodigy; yet we read, without the least disgust, how Godfrey slew his thousands, and Rinaldohis ten thousands. Within the last hundred years, stories about Chinaand Bantam, which ought not to have imposed on an old nurse, weregravely laid down as foundations of political theories by eminentphilosophers. What the time of the Crusades is to us, the generation ofCroesus and Solon was to the Greeks of the time of Herodotus. Babylonwas to them what Pekin was to the French academicians of the lastcentury. 

For such a people was the book of Herodotus composed; and, if we maytrust to a report, not sanctioned indeed by writers of high authority, but in itself not improbable, it was composed, not to be read, but tobe heard. It was not to the slow circulation of a few copies, which therich only could possess, that the aspiring author looked for his reward. The great Olympian festival, --the solemnity which collected multitudes, proud of the Grecian name, from the wildest mountains of Doris, and theremotest colonies of Italy and Libya, --was to witness his triumph. Theinterest of the narrative, and the beauty of the style, were aidedby the imposing effect of recitation, --by the splendour of thespectacle, --by the powerful influence of sympathy. A critic who couldhave asked for authorities in the midst of such a scene must have beenof a cold and sceptical nature; and few such critics were there. As wasthe historian, such were the auditors, --inquisitive, credulous, easilymoved by religious awe or patriotic enthusiasm. They were the verymen to hear with delight of strange beasts, and birds, and trees, --ofdwarfs, and giants, and cannibals--of gods, whose very names it wasimpiety to utter, --of ancient dynasties, which had left behind themmonuments surpassing all the works of later times, --of towns likeprovinces, --of rivers like seas, --of stupendous walls, and temples, andpyramids, --of the rites which the Magi performed at daybreak on the topsof the mountains, --of the secrets inscribed on the eternal obelisks ofMemphis. With equal delight they would have listened to thegraceful romances of their own country. They now heard of the exactaccomplishment of obscure predictions, of the punishment of crimes overwhich the justice of heaven had seemed to slumber, --of dreams, omens, warnings from the dead, --of princesses, for whom noble suitors contendedin every generous exercise of strength and skill, --of infants, strangelypreserved from the dagger of the assassin, to fulfil high destinies. 

As the narrative approached their own times, the interest became stillmore absorbing. The chronicler had now to tell the story of thatgreat conflict from which Europe dates its intellectual and politicalsupremacy, --a story which, even at this distance of time, is the mostmarvellous and the most touching in the annals of the human race, --astory abounding with all that is wild and wonderful, with all that ispathetic and animating; with the gigantic caprices of infinite wealthand despotic power--with the mightier miracles of wisdom, of virtue, and of courage. He told them of rivers dried up in a day, --ofprovinces famished for a meal, --of a passage for ships hewn through themountains, --of a road for armies spread upon the waves, --of monarchiesand commonwealths swept away, --of anxiety, of terror, of confusion, ofdespair!--and then of proud and stubborn hearts tried in that extremityof evil, and not found wanting, --of resistance long maintained againstdesperate odds, --of lives dearly sold, when resistance could bemaintained no more, --of signal deliverance, and of unsparing revenge. Whatever gave a stronger air of reality to a narrative so wellcalculated to inflame the passions, and to flatter national pride, wascertain to be favourably received. 

Between the time at which Herodotus is said to have composed hishistory, and the close of the Peloponnesian war, about forty yearselapsed, --forty years, crowded with great military and political events. The circumstances of that period produced a great effect on theGrecian character; and nowhere was this effect so remarkable as in theillustrious democracy of Athens. An Athenian, indeed, even in thetime of Herodotus, would scarcely have written a book so romantic andgarrulous as that of Herodotus. As civilisation advanced, the citizensof that famous republic became still less visionary, and still lesssimple-hearted. They aspired to know where their ancestors had beencontent to doubt; they began to doubt where their ancestors had thoughtit their duty to believe. Aristophanes is fond of alluding to thischange in the temper of his countrymen. The father and son, in theClouds, are evidently representatives of the generations to which theyrespectively belonged. Nothing more clearly illustrates the nature ofthis moral revolution than the change which passed upon tragedy. Thewild sublimity of Aeschylus became the scoff of every young Phidippides. Lectures on abstruse points of philosophy, the fine distinctions ofcasuistry, and the dazzling fence of rhetoric, were substituted forpoetry. The language lost something of that infantine sweetness whichhad characterised it. It became less like the ancient Tuscan, and morelike the modern French. 

The fashionable logic of the Greeks was, indeed, far from strict. Logicnever can be strict where books are scarce, and where information isconveyed orally. We are all aware how frequently fallacies, which, whenset down on paper, are at once detected, pass for unanswerable argumentswhen dexterously and volubly urged in Parliament, at the bar, or inprivate conversation. The reason is evident. We cannot inspect themclosely enough to perceive their inaccuracy. We cannot readily comparethem with each other. We lose sight of one part of the subject beforeanother, which ought to be received in connection with it, comes beforeus; and as there is no immutable record of what has been admitted andof what has been denied, direct contradictions pass muster with littledifficulty. Almost all the education of a Greek consisted in talking andlistening. His opinions on government were picked up in the debates ofthe assembly. If he wished to study metaphysics, instead of shuttinghimself up with a book, he walked down to the market-place to look fora sophist. So completely were men formed to these habits, that evenwriting acquired a conversational air. The philosophers adopted the formof dialogue, as the most natural mode of communicating knowledge. Theirreasonings have the merits and the defects which belong to that speciesof composition, and are characterised rather by quickness and subtiltythan by depth and precision. Truth is exhibited in parts, and byglimpses. Innumerable clever hints are given; but no sound and durablesystem is erected. The argumentum ad hominem, a kind of argument mostefficacious in debate, but utterly useless for the investigation ofgeneral principles, is among their favourite resources. Hence, thoughnothing can be more admirable than the skill which Socrates displays inthe conversations which Plato has reported or invented, his victories, for the most part, seem to us unprofitable. A trophy is set up; but nonew province is added to the dominions of the human mind. 

Still, where thousands of keen and ready intellects were constantlyemployed in speculating on the qualiies of actions and on the principlesof government, it was impossible that history should retain its wholecharacter. It became less gossiping and less picturesque; but much moreaccurate, and somewhat more scientific. 

The history of Thucydides differs from that of Herodotus as a portraitdiffers from the representation of an imaginary scene; as the Burke orFox of Reynolds differs from his Ugolino or his Beaufort. In the formercase, the archetype is given: in the latter it is created. The facultieswhich are required for the latter purpose are of a higher and rarerorder than those which suffice for the former, and indeed necessarilycomprise them. He who is able to paint what he sees with the eye of themind will surely be able to paint what he sees with the eye of the body. He who can invent a story, and tell it well, will also be able to tell, in an interesting manner, a story which he has not invented. If, inpractice, some of the best writers of fiction have been among the worstwriters of history, it has been because one of their talents had mergedin another so completely that it could not be severed; because, havinglong been habituated to invent and narrate at the same time, they foundit impossible to narrate without inventing. 

Some capricious and discontented artists have affected to considerportrait-painting as unworthy of a man of genius. Some critics havespoken in the same contemptuous manner of history. Johnson puts the casethus: The historian tells either what is false or what is true: in theformer case he is no historian: in the latter he has no opportunity fordisplaying his abilities: for truth is one: and all who tell the truthmust tell it alike. 

It is not difficult to elude both the horns of this dilemma. We willrecur to the analogous art of portrait-painting. Any man with eyes andhands may be taught to take a likeness. The process, up to a certainpoint, is merely mechanical. If this were all, a man of talents mightjustly despise the occupation. But we could mention portraits which areresemblances, --but not mere resemblances; faithful, --but much more thanfaithful; portraits which condense into one point of time, and exhibit, at a single glance, the whole history of turbid and eventful lives--inwhich the eye seems to scrutinise us, and the mouth to command us--inwhich the brow menaces, and the lip almost quivers with scorn--in whichevery wrinkle is a comment on some important transaction. The accountwhich Thucydides has given of the retreat from Syracuse is, amongnarratives, what Vandyke's Lord Strafford is among paintings. 

Diversity, it is said, implies error: truth is one, and admits of nodegrees. We answer, that this principle holds good only in abstractreasonings. When we talk of the truth of imitation in the fine arts, wemean an imperfect and a graduated truth. No picture is exactly likethe original; nor is a picture good in proportion as it is like theoriginal. When Sir Thomas Lawrence paints a handsome peeress, he doesnot contemplate her through a powerful microscope, and transfer to thecanvas the pores of the skin, the blood-vessels of the eye, and all theother beauties which Gulliver discovered in the Brobdingnagian maidsof honour. If he were to do this, the effect would not merely beunpleasant, but, unless the scale of the picture were proportionablyenlarged, would be absolutely FALSE. And, after all, a microscope ofgreater power than that which he had employed would convict him ofinnumerable omissions. The same may be said of history. Perfectly andabsolutely true it cannot be: for, to be perfectly and absolutelytrue, it ought to record ALL the slightest particulars of the slightesttransactions--all the things done and all the words uttered duringthe time of which it treats. The omission of any circumstance, howeverinsignificant, would be a defect. If history were written thus, theBodleian Library would not contain the occurrences of a week. What istold in the fullest and most accurate annals bears an infinitely smallproportion to what is suppressed. The difference between the copiouswork of Clarendon and the account of the civil wars in the abridgmentof Goldsmith vanishes when compared with the immense mass of factsrespecting which both are equally silent. 

No picture, then, and no history, can present us with the whole truth:but those are the best pictures and the best histories which exhibitsuch parts of the truth as most nearly produce the effect of the whole. He who is deficient in the art of selection may, by showing nothingbut the truth, produce all the effect of the grossest falsehood. Itperpetually happens that one writer tells less truth than another, merely because he tells more truths. In the imitative arts we constantlysee this. There are lines in the human face, and objects in landscape, which stand in such relations to each other, that they ought either tobe all introduced into a painting together or all omitted together. Asketch into which none of them enters may be excellent; but, if someare given and others left out, though there are more points of likeness, there is less likeness. An outline scrawled with a pen, which seizes themarked features of a countenance, will give a much stronger idea of itthan a bad painting in oils. Yet the worst painting in oils that everhung at Somerset House resembles the original in many more particulars. A bust of white marble may give an excellent idea of a blooming face. Colour the lips and cheeks of the bust, leaving the hair and eyesunaltered, and the similarity, instead of being more striking, will beless so. 

History has its foreground and its background: and it is principally inthe management of its perspective that one artist differs from another. Some events must be represented on a large scale, others diminished; thegreat majority will be lost in the dimness of the horizon; and a generalidea of their joint effect will be given by a few slight touches. 

In this respect no writer has ever equalled Thucydides. He was a perfectmaster of the art of gradual diminution. His history is sometimes asconcise as a chronological chart; yet it is always perspicuous. Itis sometimes as minute as one of Lovelace's letters; yet it is neverprolix. He never fails to contract and to expand it in the right place. 

Thucydides borrowed from Herodotus the practice of putting speeches ofhis own into the mouths of his characters. In Herodotus this usage isscarcely censurable. It is of a piece with his whole manner. But it isaltogether incongruous in the work of his successor, and violates, notonly the accuracy of history, but the decencies of fiction. When oncewe enter into the spirit of Herodotus, we find no inconsistency. Theconventional probability of his drama is preserved from the beginningto the end. The deliberate orations, and the familiar dialogues, arein strict keeping with each other. But the speeches of Thucydides areneither preceded nor followed by anything with which they harmonise. They give to the whole book something of the grotesque character ofthose Chinese pleasure-grounds in which perpendicular rocks of granitestart up in the midst of a soft green plain. Invention is shocking wheretruth is in such close juxtaposition with it. 

Thucydides honestly tells us that some of these discourses are purelyfictitious. He may have reported the substance of others correctly, butit is clear from the internal evidence that he has preserved no morethan the substance. His own peculiar habits of thought and expressionare everywhere discernible. Individual and national peculiarities areseldom to be traced in the sentiments, and never in the diction. Theoratory of the Corinthians and Thebans is not less Attic, either inmatter or in manner, than that of the Athenians. The style of Cleon isas pure, as austere, as terse, and as significant, as that of Pericles. 

In spite of this great fault, it must be allowed that Thucydides hassurpassed all his rivals in the art of historical narration, in theart of producing an effect on the imagination, by skilful selectionand disposition, without indulging in the license of invention. Butnarration, though an important part of the business of a historian, isnot the whole. To append a moral to a work of fiction is either uselessor superfluous. A fiction may give a more impressive effect to whatis already known; but it can teach nothing new. If it presents to uscharacters and trains of events to which our experience furnishesus with nothing similar, instead of deriving instruction from it, wepronounce it unnatural. We do not form our opinions from it; but wetry it by our preconceived opinions. Fiction, therefore, is essentiallyimitative. Its merit consists in its resemblance to a model with whichwe are already familiar, or to which at least we can instantly refer. Hence it is that the anecdotes which interest us most strongly inauthentic narrative are offensive when introduced into novels; that whatis called the romantic part of history is in fact the least romantic. Itis delightful as history, because it contradicts our previous notionsof human nature, and of the connection of causes and effects. It is, onthat very account, shocking and incongruous in fiction. In fiction, the principles are given, to find the facts: in history, the facts aregiven, to find the principles; and the writer who does not explain thephenomena as well as state them, performs only one half of his office. Facts are the mere dross of history. It is from the abstract truth whichinterpenetrates them, and lies latent among them like gold in the ore, that the mass derives its whole value: and the precious particles aregenerally combined with the baser in such a manner that the separationis a task of the utmost difficulty. 

Here Thucydides is deficient: the deficiency, indeed, is notdiscreditable to him. It was the inevitable effect of circumstances. Itwas in the nature of things necessary that, in some part of its progressthrough political science, the human mind should reach that point whichit attained in his time. Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps. The axioms of an English debating club would have been startling andmysterious paradoxes to the most enlightened statesmen of Athens. Butit would be as absurd to speak contemptuously of the Athenian on thisaccount as to ridicule Strabo for not having given us an account ofChili, or to talk of Ptolemy as we talk of Sir Richard Phillips. Still, when we wish for solid geographical information, we must prefer thesolemn coxcombry of Pinkerton to the noble work of Strabo. If we wantedinstruction respecting the solar system, we should consult the silliestgirl from a boarding-school, rather than Ptolemy. 

Thucydides was undoubtedly a sagacious and reflecting man. This clearlyappears from the ability with which he discusses practical questions. But the talent of deciding on the circumstances of a particular case isoften possessed in the highest perfection by persons destitute ofthe power of generalisation. Men skilled in the military tacticsof civilised nations have been amazed at the far-sightedness andpenetration which a Mohawk displays in concerting his stratagems, or indiscerning those of his enemies. In England, no class possesses so muchof that peculiar ability which is required for constructing ingeniousschemes, and for obviating remote difficulties, as the thieves and thethief-takers. Women have more of this dexterity than men. Lawyers havemore of it than statesmen: statesmen have more of it than philosophers. Monk had more of it than Harrington and all his club. Walpole had moreof it than Adam Smith or Beccaria. Indeed, the species of disciplineby which this dexterity is acquired tends to contract the mind, and torender it incapable of abstract reasoning. 

The Grecian statesmen of the age of Thucydides were distinguished bytheir practical sagacity, their insight into motives, their skill indevising means for the attainment of their ends. A state of society inwhich the rich were constantly planning the oppression of the poor, and the poor the spoliation of the rich, in which the ties of partyhad superseded those of country, in which revolutions andcounter-revolutions were events of daily occurrence, was naturallyprolific in desperate and crafty political adventurers. This was thevery school in which men were likely to acquire the dissimulation ofMazarin, the judicious temerity of Richelieu, the penetration, theexquisite tact, the almost instinctive presentiment of approachingevents which gave so much authority to the counsel of Shaftesbury, that"it was as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God. " In this schoolThucydides studied; and his wisdom is that which such a school wouldnaturally afford. He judges better of circumstances than of principles. The more a question is narrowed, the better he reasons upon it. Hiswork suggests many most important considerations respecting the firstprinciples of government and morals, the growth of factions, theorganisation of armies, and the mutual relations of communities. Yetall his general observations on these subjects are very superficial. Hismost judicious remarks differ from the remarks of a really philosophicalhistorian, as a sum correctly cast up by a bookkeeper from a generalexpression discovered by an algebraist. The former is useful only in asingle transaction; the latter may be applied to an infinite number ofcases. 

This opinion will, we fear, be considered as heterodox. For, not tospeak of the illusion which the sight of a Greek type, or the sound ofa Greek diphthong, often produces, there are some peculiarities in themanner of Thucydides which in no small degree have tended to secure tohim the reputation of profundity. His book is evidently the book of aman and a statesman; and in this respect presents a remarkable contrastto the delightful childishness of Herodotus. Throughout it there isan air of matured power, of grave and melancholy reflection, ofimpartiality and habitual self-command. His feelings are rarelyindulged, and speedily repressed. Vulgar prejudices of every kind, and particularly vulgar superstitions, he treats with a cold andsober disdain peculiar to himself. His style is weighty, condensed, antithetical, and not unfrequently obscure. But, when we look at hispolitical philosophy, without regard to these circumstances, we findhim to have been, what indeed it would have been a miracle if he had notbeen, simply an Athenian of the fifth century before Christ. 

Xenophon is commonly placed, but we think without much reason, in thesame rank with Herodotus and Thucydides. He resembles them, indeed, in the purity and sweetness of his style; but in spirit, he ratherresembles that later school of historians whose works seem to be fablescomposed for a moral, and who, in their eagerness to give us warningsand examples, forget to give us men and women. The Life of Cyrus, whether we look upon it as a history or as a romance, seems to us avery wretched performance. The Expedition of the Ten Thousand, and theHistory of Grecian Affairs, are certainly pleasant reading; but theyindicate no great power of mind. In truth, Xenophon, though his tastewas elegant, his disposition amiable, and his intercourse with the worldextensive, had, we suspect, rather a weak head. Such was evidently theopinion of that extraordinary man to whom he early attached himself, and for whose memory he entertained an idolatrous veneration. He came inonly for the milk with which Socrates nourished his babes in philosophy. A few saws of morality, and a few of the simplest doctrines of naturalreligion, were enough for the good young man. The strong meat, the boldspeculations on physical and metaphysical science, were reserved forauditors of a different description. Even the lawless habits of acaptain of mercenary troops could not change the tendency which thecharacter of Xenophon early acquired. To the last, he seems to haveretained a sort of heathen Puritanism. The sentiments of piety andvirtue which abound in his works are those of a well-meaning man, somewhat timid and narrow-minded, devout from constitution rather thanfrom rational conviction. He was as superstitious as Herodotus, but ina way far more offensive. The very peculiarities which charm us inan infant, the toothless mumbling, the stammering, the tottering, thehelplessness, the causeless tears and laughter, are disgusting inold age. In the same manner, the absurdity which precedes a periodof general intelligence is often pleasing; that which follows it iscontemptible. The nonsense of Herodotus is that of a baby. The nonsenseof Xenophon is that of a dotard. His stories about dreams, omens, andprophecies, present a strange contrast to the passages in which theshrewd and incredulous Thucydides mentions the popular superstitions. It is not quite clear that Xenophon was honest in his credulity; hisfanaticism was in some degree politic. He would have made an excellentmember of the Apostolic Camarilla. An alarmist by nature, an aristocratby party, he carried to an unreasonable excess his horror of popularturbulence. The quiet atrocity of Sparta did not shock him in the samemanner; for he hated tumult more than crimes. He was desirous to findrestraints which might curb the passions of the multitude; and heabsurdly fancied that he had found them in a religion withoutevidences or sanction, precepts or example, in a frigid system ofTheophilanthropy, supported by nursery tales. 

Polybius and Arrian have given us authentic accounts of facts; and heretheir merit ends. They were not men of comprehensive minds; they hadnot the art of telling a story in an interesting manner. They havein consequence been thrown into the shade by writers who, though lessstudious of truth than themselves, understood far better the art ofproducing effect, --by Livy and Quintus Curtius. 

Yet Polybius and Arrian deserve high praise when compared with thewriters of that school of which Plutarch may be considered as the head. For the historians of this class we must confess that we entertain apeculiar aversion. They seem to have been pedants, who, though destituteof those valuable qualities which are frequently found in conjunctionwith pedantry, thought themselves great philosophers and greatpoliticians. They not only mislead their readers in every page, as toparticular facts, but they appear to have altogether misconceived thewhole character of the times of which they write. They were inhabitantsof an empire bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Euphrates, by theice of Scythia and the sands of Mauritania; composed of nations whosemanners, whose languages, whose religion, whose countenances andcomplexions, were widely different; governed by one mighty despotism, which had risen on the ruins of a thousand commonwealths and kingdoms. Of liberty, such as it is in small democracies, of patriotism, such asit is in small independent communities of any kind, they had, and theycould have, no experimental knowledge. But they had read of men whoexerted themselves in the cause of their country with an energy unknownin later times, who had violated the dearest of domestic charities, orvoluntarily devoted themselves to death for the public good; and theywondered at the degeneracy of their contemporaries. It never occurred tothem that the feelings which they so greatly admired sprung from localand occasional causes; that they will always grow up spontaneously insmall societies; and that, in large empires, though they may be forcedinto existence for a short time by peculiar circumstances, they cannotbe general or permanent. It is impossible that any man should feel fora fortress on a remote frontier as he feels for his own house; that heshould grieve for a defeat in which ten thousand people whom he neversaw have fallen as he grieves for a defeat which has half unpeopled thestreet in which he lives; that he should leave his home for a militaryexpedition in order to preserve the balance of power, as cheerfully ashe would leave it to repel invaders who had begun to burn all the cornfields in his neighbourhood. 

The writers of whom we speak should have considered this. They shouldhave considered that in patriotism, such as it existed amongst theGreeks, there was nothing essentially and eternally good; that anexclusive attachment to a particular society, though a natural, and, under certain restrictions, a most useful sentiment, impliesno extraordinary attainments in wisdom or virtue; that, where it hasexisted in an intense degree, it has turned states into gangs of robberswhom their mutual fidelity has rendered more dangerous, has given acharacter of peculiar atrocity to war, and has generated that worst ofall political evils, the tyranny of nations over nations. 

Enthusiastically attached to the name of liberty, these historianstroubled themselves little about its definition. The Spartans, tormentedby ten thousand absurd restraints, unable to please themselves in thechoice of their wives, their suppers, or their company, compelled toassume a peculiar manner, and to talk in a peculiar style, gloried intheir liberty. The aristocracy of Rome repeatedly made liberty a pleafor cutting off the favourites of the people. In almost all the littlecommonwealths of antiquity, liberty was used as a pretext for measuresdirected against everything which makes liberty valuable, for measureswhich stifled discussion, corrupted the administration of justice, anddiscouraged the accumulation of property. The writers, whose works weare considering, confounded the sound with the substance, and themeans with the end. Their imaginations were inflamed by mystery. Theyconceived of liberty as monks conceive of love, as cockneys conceive ofthe happiness and innocence of rural life, as novel-reading sempstressesconceive of Almack's and Grosvenor Square, accomplished Marquesses andhandsome Colonels of the Guards. In the relation of events, and thedelineation of characters, they have paid little attention to facts, to the costume of the times of which they pretend to treat, or to thegeneral principles of human nature. They have been faithful only totheir own puerile and extravagant doctrines. Generals and statesmen aremetamorphosed into magnanimous coxcombs, from whose fulsome virtues weturn away with disgust. The fine sayings and exploits of their heroesremind us of the insufferable perfections of Sir Charles Grandison, andaffect us with a nausea similar to that which we feel when an actor, in one of Morton's or Kotzebue's plays, lays his hand on his heart, advances to the ground-lights, and mouths a moral sentence for theedification of the gods. 

These writers, men who knew not what it was to have a country, men whohad never enjoyed political rights, brought into fashion an offensivecant about patriotism and zeal for freedom. What the English Puritansdid for the language of Christianity, what Scuderi did for the languageof love, they did for the language of public spirit. By habitualexaggeration they made it mean. By monotonous emphasis they made itfeeble. They abused it till it became scarcely possible to use it witheffect. 

Their ordinary rules of morality are deduced from extreme cases. Thecommon regimen which they prescribe for society is made up of thosedesperate remedies which only its most desperate distempers require. They look with peculiar complacency on actions which even thosewho approve them consider as exceptions to laws of almost universalapplication--which bear so close an affinity to the most atrociouscrimes that, even where it may be unjust to censure them, it is unsafeto praise them. It is not strange, therefore, that some flagitiousinstances of perfidy and cruelty should have been passed unchallenged insuch company, that grave moralists, with no personal interest at stake, should have extolled, in the highest terms, deeds of which theatrocity appalled even the infuriated factions in whose cause they wereperpetrated. The part which Timoleon took in the assassination of hisbrother shocked many of his own partisans. The recollection of it preyedlong on his own mind. But it was reserved for historians who lived somecenturies later to discover that his conduct was a glorious display ofvirtue, and to lament that, from the frailty of human nature, a man whocould perform so great an exploit could repent of it. 

The writings of these men, and of their modern imitators, have producedeffects which deserve some notice. The English have been so longaccustomed to political speculation, and have enjoyed so large a measureof practical liberty, that such works have produced little effect ontheir minds. We have classical associations and great names of our ownwhich we can confidently oppose to the most splendid of ancient times. Senate has not to our ears a sound so venerable as Parliament. Werespect to the Great Charter more than the laws of Solon. The Capitoland the Forum impress us with less awe than our own Westminster Hall andWestminster Abbey, the place where the great men of twenty generationshave contended, the place where they sleep together! The list ofwarriors and statesmen by whom our constitution was founded orpreserved, from De Montfort down to Fox, may well stand a comparisonwith the Fasti of Rome. The dying thanksgiving of Sidney is as noble asthe libation which Thrasea poured to Liberating Jove: and we thinkwith far less pleasure of Cato tearing out his entrails than of Russellsaying, as he turned away from his wife, that the bitterness of deathwas past. Even those parts of our history over which, on some accounts, we would gladly throw a veil may be proudly opposed to those on whichthe moralists of antiquity loved most to dwell. The enemy of Englishliberty was not murdered by men whom he had pardoned and loaded withbenefits. He was not stabbed in the back by those who smiled and cringedbefore his face. He was vanquished on fields of stricken battle; he wasarraigned, sentenced, and executed in the face of heaven and earth. Ourliberty is neither Greek nor Roman; but essentially English. It hasa character of its own, --a character which has taken a tinge fromthe sentiments of the chivalrous ages, and which accords with thepeculiarities of our manners and of our insular situation. It has alanguage, too, of its own, and a language singularly idiomatic, full ofmeaning to ourselves, scarcely intelligible to strangers. 

Here, therefore, the effect of books such as those which we have beenconsidering has been harmless. They have, indeed, given currency tomany very erroneous opinions with respect to ancient history. Theyhave heated the imaginations of boys. They have misled the judgment andcorrupted the taste of some men of letters, such as Akenside and SirWilliam Jones. But on persons engaged in public affairs they have hadvery little influence. The foundations of our constitution were laidby men who knew nothing of the Greeks but that they denied the orthodoxprocession and cheated the Crusaders; and nothing of Rome, but thatthe Pope lived there. Those who followed, contented themselves withimproving on the original plan. They found models at home and thereforethey did not look for them abroad. But, when enlightened men on theContinent began to think about political reformation, having no patternsbefore their eyes in their domestic history, they naturally hadrecourse to those remains of antiquity, the study of which is consideredthroughout Europe as an important part of education. The historians ofwhom we have been speaking had been members of large communities, andsubjects of absolute sovereigns. Hence it is, as we have already said, that they commit such gross errors in speaking of the little republicsof antiquity. Their works were now read in the spirit in which theyhad been written. They were read by men placed in circumstances closelyresembling their own, unacquainted with the real nature of liberty, butinclined to believe everything good which could be told respecting it. How powerfully these books impressed these speculative reformers, iswell known to all who have paid any attention to the French literatureof the last century. But, perhaps, the writer on whom they produced thegreatest effect was Vittorio Alfieri. In some of his plays, particularlyin Virginia, Timoleon, and Brutus the Younger, he has even caricaturedthe extravagance of his masters. 

It was not strange that the blind, thus led by the blind, shouldstumble. The transactions of the French Revolution, in some measure, took their character from these works. Without the assistance of theseworks, indeed, a revolution would have taken place, --a revolutionproductive of much good and much evil, tremendous but shortlived, evildearly purchased, but durable good. But it would not have been exactlysuch a revolution. The style, the accessories, would have been in manyrespects different. There would have been less of bombast in language, less of affectation in manner, less of solemn trifling and ostentatioussimplicity. The acts of legislative assemblies, and the correspondenceof diplomatists, would not have been disgraced by rants worthy only of acollege declamation. The government of a great and polished nation wouldnot have rendered itself ridiculous by attempting to revive the usagesof a world which had long passed away, or rather of a world whichhad never existed except in the description of a fantastic school ofwriters. These second-hand imitations resembled the originals about asmuch as the classical feast with which the Doctor in Peregrine Pickleturned the stomachs of all his guests resembled one of the suppers ofLucullus in the Hall of Apollo. 

These were mere follies. But the spirit excited by these writersproduced more serious effects. The greater part of the crimes whichdisgraced the revolution sprung indeed from the relaxation of law, frompopular ignorance, from the remembrance of past oppression, fromthe fear of foreign conquest, from rapacity, from ambition, fromparty-spirit. But many atrocious proceedings must, doubtless, beascribed to heated imagination, to perverted principle, to a distastefor what was vulgar in morals, and a passion for what was startling anddubious. Mr Burke has touched on this subject with great felicity ofexpression: "The gradation of their republic, " says he, "is laid inmoral paradoxes. All those instances to be found in history, whetherreal or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which moralityis perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted naturerecoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instructionof their youth. " This evil, we believe, is to be directly ascribed tothe influence of the historians whom we have mentioned, and their modernimitators. 

Livy had some faults in common with these writers. But on the whole hemust be considered as forming a class by himself: no historian with whomwe are acquainted has shown so complete an indifference to truth. Heseems to have cared only about the picturesque effect of his book, andthe honour of his country. On the other hand, we do not know, in thewhole range of literature, an instance of a bad thing so well done. Thepainting of the narrative is beyond description vivid and graceful. Theabundance of interesting sentiments and splendid imagery in the speechesis almost miraculous. His mind is a soil which is never over-teemed, afountain which never seems to trickle. It pours forth profusely; yetit gives no sign of exhaustion. It was probably to this exuberance ofthought and language, always fresh, always sweet, always pure, no sooneryielded than repaired, that the critics applied that expression whichhas been so much discussed lactea ubertas. 

All the merits and all the defects of Livy take a colouring from thecharacter of his nation. He was a writer peculiarly Roman; the proudcitizen of a commonwealth which had indeed lost the reality of liberty, but which still sacredly preserved its forms--in fact, the subject ofan arbitrary prince, but in his own estimation one of the masters of theworld, with a hundred kings below him, and only the gods above him. He, therefore, looked back on former times with feelings far different fromthose which were naturally entertained by his Greek contemporaries, andwhich at a later period became general among men of letters throughoutthe Roman Empire. He contemplated the past with interest and delight, not because it furnished a contrast to the present, but because ithad led to the present. He recurred to it, not to lose in proudrecollections the sense of national degradation, but to trace theprogress of national glory. It is true that his veneration for antiquityproduced on him some of the effects which it produced on those whoarrived at it by a very different road. He has something of theirexaggeration, something of their cant, something of their fondness foranomalies and lusus naturae in morality. Yet even here we perceivea difference. They talk rapturously of patriotism and liberty in theabstract. He does not seem to think any country but Rome deserving oflove; nor is it for liberty as liberty, but for liberty as a part of theRoman institutions, that he is zealous. 

Of the concise and elegant accounts of the campaigns of Caesar littlecan be said. They are incomparable models for military despatches. Buthistories they are not, and do not pretend to be. 

The ancient critics placed Sallust in the same rank with Livy; andunquestionably the small portion of his works which has come down to usis calculated to give a high opinion of his talents. But his styleis not very pleasant: and his most powerful work, the account of theConspiracy of Catiline, has rather the air of a clever party pamphletthan that of a history. It abounds with strange inconsistencies, which, unexplained as they are, necessarily excite doubts as to the fairnessof the narrative. It is true, that many circumstances now forgotten mayhave been familiar to his contemporaries, and may have rendered passagesclear to them which to us appear dubious and perplexing. But a greathistorian should remember that he writes for distant generations, formen who will perceive the apparent contradictions, and will possess nomeans of reconciling them. We can only vindicate the fidelity of Sallustat the expense of his skill. But in fact all the information which wehave from contemporaries respecting this famous plot is liable to thesame objection, and is read by discerning men with the same incredulity. It is all on one side. No answer has reached our times. Yet on theshowing of the accusers the accused seem entitled to acquittal. Catiline, we are told, intrigued with a Vestal virgin, and murdered hisown son. His house was a den of gamblers and debauchees. No young mancould cross his threshold without danger to his fortune and reputation. Yet this is the man with whom Cicero was willing to coalesce in acontest for the first magistracy of the republic; and whom he described, long after the fatal termination of the conspiracy, as an accomplishedhypocrite, by whom he had himself been deceived, and who had acted withconsummate skill the character of a good citizen and a good friend. Weare told that the plot was the most wicked and desperate ever known, and, almost in the same breath, that the great body of the people, andmany of the nobles, favoured it; that the richest citizens of Rome wereeager for the spoliation of all property, and its highest functionariesfor the destruction of all order; that Crassus, Caesar, the PraetorLentulus, one of the consuls of the year, one of the consuls elect, were proved or suspected to be engaged in a scheme for subvertinginstitutions to which they owed the highest honours, and introducinguniversal anarchy. We are told that a government, which knew all this, suffered the conspirator, whose rank, talents, and courage renderedhim most dangerous, to quit Rome without molestation. We are told thatbondmen and gladiators were to be armed against the citizens. Yet wefind that Catiline rejected the slaves who crowded to enlist in hisarmy, lest, as Sallust himself expresses it, "he should seem to identifytheir cause with that of the citizens. " Finally, we are told that themagistrate, who was universally allowed to have saved all classes ofhis countrymen from conflagration and massacre, rendered himself sounpopular by his conduct that a marked insult was offered to him atthe expiration of his office, and a severe punishment inflicted on himshortly after. 

Sallust tells us, what, indeed, the letters and speeches of Cicerosufficiently prove, that some persons consider the shocking, andatrocious parts of the plot as mere inventions of the government, designed to excuse its unconstitutional measures. We must confessourselves to be of that opinion. There was, undoubtedly, a strong partydesirous to change the administration. While Pompey held the command ofan army, they could not effect their purpose without preparing means forrepelling force, if necessary, by force. In all this there is nothingdifferent from the ordinary practice of Roman factions. The othercharges brought against the conspirators are so inconsistent andimprobable, that we give no credit whatever to them. If our readersthink this scepticism unreasonable, let them turn to the contemporaryaccounts of the Popish plot. Let them look over the votes of Parliament, and the speeches of the king; the charges of Scroggs, and the haranguesof the managers employed against Strafford. A person who should form hisjudgment from these pieces alone would believe that London was set onfire by the Papists, and that Sir Edmondbury Godfrey was murdered forhis religion. Yet these stories are now altogether exploded. They havebeen abandoned by statesmen to aldermen, by aldermen to clergymen, byclergymen to old women, and by old women to Sir Harcourt Lees. 

Of the Latin historians, Tacitus was certainly the greatest. Hisstyle, indeed, is not only faulty in itself, but is, in some respects, peculiarly unfit for historical composition. He carries his love ofeffect far beyond the limits of moderation. He tells a fine storyfinely, but he cannot tell a plain story plainly. He stimulates tillstimulants lose their power. Thucydides, as we have already observed, relates ordinary transactions with the unpretending clearness andsuccinctness of a gazette. His great powers of painting he reserves forevents of which the slightest details are interesting. The simplicityof the setting gives additional lustre to the brilliants. There arepassages in the narrative of Tacitus superior to the best which can bequoted from Thucydides. But they are not enchased and relieved with thesame skill. They are far more striking when extracted from the body ofthe work to which they belong than when they occur in their place, andare read in connection with what precedes and follows. 

In the delineation of character, Tacitus is unrivalled among historians, and has very few superiors among dramatists and novelists. By thedelineation of character, we do not mean the practice of drawing upepigrammatic catalogues of good and bad qualities, and appending themto the names of eminent men. No writer, indeed, has done this moreskilfully than Tacitus; but this is not his peculiar glory. All thepersons who occupy a large space in his works have an individuality ofcharacter which seems to pervade all their words and actions. We knowthem as if we had lived with them. Claudius, Nero, Otho, both theAgrippinas, are masterpieces. But Tiberius is a still higher miracle ofart. The historian undertook to make us intimately acquainted with a mansingularly dark and inscrutable, --with a man whose real disposition longremained swathed up in intricate folds of factitious virtues, and overwhose actions the hypocrisy of his youth, and the seclusion of his oldage, threw a singular mystery. He was to exhibit the specious qualitiesof the tyrant in a light which might render them transparent, and enableus at once to perceive the covering and the vices which it concealed. Hewas to trace the gradations by which the first magistrate of a republic, a senator mingling freely in debate, a noble associating with hisbrother nobles, was transformed into an Asiatic sultan; he was toexhibit a character, distinguished by courage, self-command, andprofound policy, yet defiled by all

 "th' extravagancy And crazy ribaldry of fancy. "

He was to mark the gradual effect of advancing age and approaching deathon this strange compound of strength and weakness; to exhibit the oldsovereign of the world sinking into a dotage which, though it renderedhis appetites eccentric, and his temper savage, never impaired thepowers of his stern and penetrating mind--conscious of failing strength, raging with capricious sensuality, yet to the last the keenest ofobservers, the most artful of dissemblers, and the most terrible ofmasters. The task was one of extreme difficulty. The execution is almostperfect. 

The talent which is required to write history thus bears a considerableaffinity to the talent of a great dramatist. There is one obviousdistinction. The dramatist creates; the historian only disposes. The difference is not in the mode of execution, but in the modeof conception. Shakspeare is guided by a model which exists in hisimagination; Tacitus, by a model furnished from without. Hamlet is toTiberius what the Laocoon is to the Newton of Roubilliac. 

In this part of his art Tacitus certainly had neither equal nor secondamong the ancient historians. Herodotus, though he wrote in a dramaticform, had little of dramatic genius. The frequent dialogues which heintroduces give vivacity and movement to the narrative, but are notstrikingly characteristic. Xenophon is fond of telling his readers, atconsiderable length, what he thought of the persons whose adventures herelates. But he does not show them the men, and enable them to judge forthemselves. The heroes of Livy are the most insipid of all beings, realor imaginary, the heroes of Plutarch always excepted. Indeed, themanner of Plutarch in this respect reminds us of the cookery of thosecontinental inns, the horror of English travellers, in which a certainnondescript broth is kept constantly boiling, and copiously poured, without distinction, over every dish as it comes up to table. Thucydides, though at a wide interval, comes next to Tacitus. His Pericles, his Nicias, his Cleon, his Brasidas, are happilydiscriminated. The lines are few, the colouring faint: but the generalair and expression is caught. 

We begin, like the priest in Don Quixote's library, to be tired withtaking down books one after another for separate judgment, and feelinclined to pass sentence on them in masses. We shall therefore, instead of pointing out the defects and merits of the different modernhistorians, state generally in what particulars they have surpassedtheir predecessors, and in what we conceive them to have failed. 

They have certainly been, in one sense, far more strict in theiradherence to truth than most of the Greek and Roman writers. They donot think themselves entitled to render their narrative interesting byintroducing descriptions, conversations, and harangues which have noexistence but in their own imagination. This improvement was graduallyintroduced. History commenced among the modern nations of Europe, as ithad commenced among the Greeks, in romance. Froissart was our Herodotus. Italy was to Europe what Athens was to Greece. In Italy, therefore, a more accurate and manly mode of narration was early introduced. Machiavelli and Guicciardini, in imitation of Livy and Thucydides, composed speeches for their historical personages. But, as the classicalenthusiasm which distinguished the age of Lorenzo and Leo graduallysubsided, this absurd practice was abandoned. In France, we fear, itstill, in some degree, keeps its ground. In our own country, a writerwho should venture on it would be laughed to scorn. Whether thehistorians of the last two centuries tell more truth than those ofantiquity, may perhaps be doubted. But it is quite certain that theytell fewer falsehoods. 

In the philosophy of history, the moderns have very far surpassed theancients. It is not, indeed, strange that the Greeks and Romans shouldnot have carried the science of government, or any other experimentalscience, so far as it has been carried in our time; for the experimentalsciences are generally in a state of progression. They were betterunderstood in the seventeenth century than in the sixteenth, and inthe eighteenth century than in the seventeenth. But this constantimprovement, this natural growth of knowledge, will not altogetheraccount for the immense superiority of the modern writers. Thedifference is a difference not in degree, but of kind. It is not merelythat new principles have been discovered, but that new faculties seem tobe exerted. It is not that at one time the human intellect should havemade but small progress, and at another time have advanced far: butthat at one time it should have been stationary, and at another timeconstantly proceeding. In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence of public works, theancients were at least our equals. They reasoned as justly as ourselveson subjects which required pure demonstration. But in the moral sciencesthey made scarcely any advance. During the long period which elapsedbetween the fifth century before the Christian era and the fifth centuryafter it little perceptible progress was made. All the metaphysicaldiscoveries of all the philosophers, from the time of Socrates to thenorthern invasion, are not to be compared in importance with those whichhave been made in England every fifty years since the time of Elizabeth. There is not the least reason to believe that the principles ofgovernment, legislation, and political economy, were better understoodin the time of Augustus Caesar than in the time of Pericles. In ourown country, the sound doctrines of trade and jurisprudence havebeen, within the lifetime of a single generation, dimly hinted, boldlypropounded, defended, systematised, adopted by all reflecting men of allparties, quoted in legislative assemblies, incorporated into laws andtreaties. 

To what is this change to be attributed? Partly, no doubt, to thediscovery of printing, a discovery which has not only diffused knowledgewidely, but, as we have already observed, has also introduced intoreasoning a precision unknown in those ancient communities, in whichinformation, was, for the most part, conveyed orally. There was, wesuspect, another cause, less obvious, but still more powerful. 

The spirit of the two most famous nations of antiquity was remarkablyexclusive. In the time of Homer the Greeks had not begun to considerthemselves as a distinct race. They still looked with something ofchildish wonder and awe on the riches and wisdom of Sidon and Egypt. From what causes, and by what gradations, their feelings underwent achange, it is not easy to determine. Their history, from the Trojan tothe Persian war, is covered with an obscurity broken only by dim andscattered gleams of truth. But it is certain that a great alterationtook place. They regarded themselves as a separate people. They hadcommon religious rites, and common principles of public law, in whichforeigners had no part. In all their political systems, monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical, there was a strong family likeness. After the retreat of Xerxes and the fall of Mardonius, national priderendered the separation between the Greeks and the barbarians complete. The conquerors considered themselves men of a superior breed, men who, in their intercourse with neighbouring nations, were to teach, andnot to learn. They looked for nothing out of themselves. They borrowednothing. They translated nothing. We cannot call to mind a singleexpression of any Greek writer earlier than the age of Augustus, indicating an opinion that anything worth reading could be written inany language except his own. The feelings which sprung from nationalglory were not altogether extinguished by national degradation. Theywere fondly cherished through ages of slavery and shame. The literatureof Rome herself was regarded with contempt by those who had fled beforeher arms, and who bowed beneath her fasces. Voltaire says, in one of hissix thousand pamphlets, that he was the first person who told the Frenchthat England had produced eminent men besides the Duke of Marlborough. Down to a very late period, the Greeks seem to have stood in need ofsimilar information with respect to their masters. With Paulus Aemilius, Sylla, and Caesar, they were well acquainted. But the notions whichthey entertained respecting Cicero and Virgil were, probably, not unlikethose which Boileau may have formed about Shakspeare. Dionysius livedin the most splendid age of Latin poetry and eloquence. He was acritic, and, after the manner of his age, an able critic. He studiedthe language of Rome, associated with its learned men, and compiled itshistory. Yet he seems to have thought its literature valuable only forthe purpose of illustrating its antiquities. His reading appears to havebeen confined to its public records, and to a few old annalists. Once, and but once, if we remember rightly, he quotes Ennius, to solve aquestion of etymology. He has written much on the art of oratory: yet hehas not mentioned the name of Cicero. 

The Romans submitted to the pretensions of a race which they despised. Their epic poet, while he claimed for them pre-eminence in the arts ofgovernment and war, acknowledged their inferiority in taste, eloquence, and science. Men of letters affected to understand the Greek languagebetter than their own. Pomponius preferred the honour of becoming anAthenian, by intellectual naturalisation, to all the distinctions whichwere to be acquired in the political contests of Rome. His greatfriend composed Greek poems and memoirs. It is well-known that Petrarchconsidered that beautiful language in which his sonnets are written, as a barbarous jargon, and intrusted his fame to those wretched Latinhexameters which, during the last four centuries, have scarcely foundfour readers. Many eminent Romans appear to have felt the same contemptfor their native tongue as compared with the Greek. The prejudicecontinued to a very late period. Julian was as partial to the Greeklanguage as Frederic the Great to the French: and it seems that he couldnot express himself with elegance in the dialect of the state which heruled. 

Even those Latin writers who did not carry this affectation so farlooked on Greece as the only fount of knowledge. From Greece theyderived the measures of their poetry, and, indeed, all of poetry thatcan be imported. From Greece they borrowed the principles and thevocabulary of their philosophy. To the literature of other nations theydo not seem to have paid the slightest attention. The sacred booksof the Hebrews, for example, books which, considered merely as humancompositions, are invaluable to the critic, the antiquarian, andthe philosopher, seem to have been utterly unnoticed by them. Thepeculiarities of Judaism, and the rapid growth of Christianity, attracted their notice. They made war against the Jews. They madelaws against the Christians. But they never opened the books of Moses. Juvenal quotes the Pentateuch with censure. The author of the treatiseon "the Sublime" quotes it with praise: but both of them quote iterroneously. When we consider what sublime poetry, what curious history, what striking and peculiar views of the Divine nature and of thesocial duties of men, are to be found in the Jewish scriptures, whenwe consider that two sects on which the attention of the government wasconstantly fixed appealed to those scriptures as the rule of their faithand practice, this indifference is astonishing. The fact seems to be, that the Greeks admired only themselves, and that the Romans admiredonly themselves and the Greeks. Literary men turned away with disgustfrom modes of thought and expression so widely different from allthat they had been accustomed to admire. The effect was narrowness andsameness of thought. Their minds, if we may so express ourselves, bredin and in, and were accordingly cursed with barrenness and degeneracy. No extraneous beauty or vigour was engrafted on the decaying stock. Byan exclusive attention to one class of phenomena, by an exclusivetaste for one species of excellence, the human intellect was stunted. Occasional coincidences were turned into general rules. Prejudices wereconfounded with instincts. On man, as he was found in a particular stateof society--on government, as it had existed in a particular cornerof the world, many just observations were made; but of man as man, or government as government, little was known. Philosophy remainedstationary. Slight changes, sometimes for the worse and sometimes forthe better, were made in the superstructure. But nobody thought ofexamining the foundations. 

The vast despotism of the Caesars, gradually effacing all nationalpeculiarities, and assimilating the remotest provinces of the empire toeach other, augmented the evil. At the close of the third century afterChrist, the prospects of mankind were fearfully dreary. A system ofetiquette, as pompously frivolous as that of the Escurial, had beenestablished. A sovereign almost invisible; a crowd of dignitariesminutely distinguished by badges and titles; rhetoricians who saidnothing but what had been said ten thousand times; schools in whichnothing was taught but what had been known for ages: such was themachinery provided for the government and instruction of the mostenlightened part of the human race. That great community was then indanger of experiencing a calamity far more terrible than any ofthe quick, inflammatory, destroying maladies, to which nations areliable, --a tottering, drivelling, paralytic longevity, the immortalityof the Struldbrugs, a Chinese civilisation. It would be easy to indicatemany points of resemblance between the subjects of Diocletian and thepeople of that Celestial Empire, where, during many centuries, nothinghas been learned or unlearned; where government, where education, wherethe whole system of life, is a ceremony; where knowledge forgets toincrease and multiply, and, like the talent buried in the earth, orthe pound wrapped up in the napkin, experiences neither waste noaugmentation. 

The torpor was broken by two great revolutions, the one moral, the otherpolitical, the one from within, the other from without. The victory ofChristianity over Paganism, considered with relation to this subjectonly, was of great importance. It overthrew the old system of morals;and with it much of the old system of metaphysics. It furnished theorator with new topics of declamation, and the logician with new pointsof controversy. Above all, it introduced a new principle, of which theoperation was constantly felt in every part of society. It stirred thestagnant mass from the inmost depths. It excited all the passions of astormy democracy in the quiet and listless population of an overgrownempire. The fear of heresy did what the sense of oppression could notdo; it changed men, accustomed to be turned over like sheep from tyrantto tyrant, into devoted partisans and obstinate rebels. The tones of aneloquence which had been silent for ages resounded from the pulpit ofGregory. A spirit which had been extinguished on the plains of Philippirevived in Athanasius and Ambrose. 

Yet even this remedy was not sufficiently violent for the disease. Itdid not prevent the empire of Constantinople from relapsing, after ashort paroxysm of excitement, into a state of stupefaction, to whichhistory furnishes scarcely any parallel. We there find that a polishedsociety, a society in which a most intricate and elaborate system ofjurisprudence was established, in which the arts of luxury were wellunderstood, in which the works of the great ancient writers werepreserved and studied, existed for nearly a thousand years withoutmaking one great discovery in science, or producing one book whichis read by any but curious inquirers. There were tumults, too, andcontroversies, and wars in abundance: and these things, bad as they arein themselves, have generally been favourable to the progress of theintellect. But here they tormented without stimulating. The waters weretroubled; but no healing influence descended. The agitations resembledthe grinnings and writhings of a galvanised corpse, not the struggles ofan athletic man. 

From this miserable state the Western Empire was saved by the fiercestand most destroying visitation with which God has ever chastenedhis creatures--the invasion of the Northern nations. Such a cure wasrequired for such a distemper. The fire of London, it has been observedwas a blessing. It burned down the city; but it burned out the plague. The same may be said of the tremendous devastation of the Romandominions. It annihilated the noisome recesses in which lurked the seedsof great moral maladies; it cleared an atmosphere fatal to the healthand vigour of the human mind. It cost Europe a thousand years ofbarbarism to escape the fate of China. 

At length the terrible purification was accomplished; and the secondcivilisation of mankind commenced, under circumstances which afforded astrong security that it would never retrograde and never pause. Europewas now a great federal community. Her numerous states were unitedby the easy ties of international law and a common religion. Theirinstitutions, their languages, their manners, their tastes inliterature, their modes of education, were widely different. Theirconnection was close enough to allow of mutual observation andimprovement, yet not so close as to destroy the idioms of nationalopinion and feeling. 

The balance of moral and intellectual influence thus establishedbetween the nations of Europe is far more important than the balanceof political power. Indeed, we are inclined to think that the latteris valuable principally because it tends to maintain the former. Thecivilised world has thus been preserved from a uniformity of characterfatal to all improvement. Every part of it has been illuminated withlight reflected from every other. Competition has produced activitywhere monopoly would have produced sluggishness. The number ofexperiments in moral science which the speculator has an opportunity ofwitnessing has been increased beyond all calculation. Society and humannature, instead of being seen in a single point of view, are presentedto him under ten thousand different aspects. By observing the manners ofsurrounding nations, by studying their literature, by comparing it withthat of his own country and of the ancient republics, he is enabled tocorrect those errors into which the most acute men must fall when theyreason from a single species to a genus. He learns to distinguishwhat is local from what is universal: what is transitory from what iseternal; to discriminate between exceptions and rules; to trace theoperation of disturbing causes; to separate those general principleswhich are always true and everywhere applicable from the accidentalcircumstances with which, in every community, they are blended, andwith which, in an isolated community, they are confounded by the mostphilosophical mind. 

Hence it is that, in generalisation, the writers of modern times havefar surpassed those of antiquity. The historians of our own country areunequalled in depth and precision of reason; and, even in the works ofour mere compilers, we often meet with speculations beyond the reach ofThucydides or Tacitus. 

But it must, at the same time, be admitted that they have characteristicfaults, so closely connected with their characteristic merits, and ofsuch magnitude, that it may well be doubted whether, on the whole, this department of literature has gained or lost during the lasttwo-and-twenty centuries. 

The best historians of later times have been seduced from truth, notby their imagination, but by their reason. They far excel theirpredecessors in the art of deducing general principles from facts. Butunhappily they have fallen into the error of distorting facts to suitgeneral principles. They arrive at a theory from looking at some of thephenomena; and the remaining phenomena they strain or curtail to suitthe theory. For this purpose it is not necessary that they should assertwhat is absolutely false; for all questions in morals and politicsare questions of comparison and degree. Any proposition which does notinvolve a contradiction in terms may by possibility be true; and, if allthe circumstances which raise a probability in its favour, be stated andenforced, and those which lead to an opposite conclusion be omitted orlightly passed over, it may appear to be demonstrated. In every humancharacter and transaction there is a mixture of good and evil: a littleexaggeration, a little suppression, a judicious use of epithets, awatchful and searching scepticism with respect to the evidence on oneside, a convenient credulity with respect to every report or traditionon the other, may easily make a saint of Laud, or a tyrant of Henry theFourth. 

This species of misrepresentation abounds in the most valuable works ofmodern historians. Herodotus tells his story like a slovenly witness, who, heated by partialities and prejudices, unacquainted with theestablished rules of evidence, and uninstructed as to the obligationsof his oath, confounds what he imagines with what he has seen and heard, and brings out facts, reports, conjectures, and fancies, in one mass. Hume is an accomplished advocate. Without positively asserting much morethan he can prove, he gives prominence to all the circumstances whichsupport his case; he glides lightly over those which are unfavourable toit; his own witnesses are applauded and encouraged; the statements whichseem to throw discredit on them are controverted; the contradictionsinto which they fall are explained away; a clear and connected abstractof their evidence is given. Everything that is offered on the other sideis scrutinised with the utmost severity; every suspicious circumstanceis a ground for comment and invective; what cannot be denied isextenuated, or passed by without notice; concessions even are sometimesmade: but this insidious candour only increases the effect of the vastmass of sophistry. 

We have mentioned Hume as the ablest and most popular writer of hisclass; but the charge which we have brought against him is one to whichall our most distinguished historians are in some degree obnoxious. Gibbon, in particular, deserves very severe censure. Of all the numerousculprits, however, none is more deeply guilty than Mr Mitford. Wewillingly acknowledge the obligations which are due to his talentsand industry. The modern historians of Greece had been in the habit ofwriting as if the world had learned nothing new during the last sixteenhundred years. Instead of illustrating the events which they narratedby the philosophy of a more enlightened age, they judged of antiquity byitself alone. They seemed to think that notions, long driven from everyother corner of literature, had a prescriptive right to occupy thislast fastness. They considered all the ancient historians as equallyauthentic. They scarcely made any distinction between him who relatedevents at which he had himself been present and him who five hundredyears after composed a philosophic romance for a society which had inthe interval undergone a complete change. It was all Greek, and alltrue! The centuries which separated Plutarch from Thucydides seemedas nothing to men who lived in an age so remote. The distance oftime produced an error similar to that which is sometimes produced bydistance of place. There are many good ladies who think that all thepeople in India live together, and who charge a friend setting out forCalcutta with kind messages to Bombay. To Rollin and Barthelemi, in thesame manner, all the classics were contemporaries. 

Mr Mitford certainly introduced great improvements; he showed us thatmen who wrote in Greek and Latin sometimes told lies; he showed us thatancient history might be related in such a manner as to furnish not onlyallusions to schoolboys, but important lessons to statesmen. From thatlove of theatrical effect and high-flown sentiment which had poisonedalmost every other work on the same subject his book is perfectly free. But his passion for a theory as false, and far more ungenerous, led himsubstantially to violate truth in every page. Statements unfavourableto democracy are made with unhesitating confidence, and with the utmostbitterness of language. Every charge brought against a monarch or anaristocracy is sifted with the utmost care. If it cannot be denied, somepalliating supposition is suggested; or we are at least reminded thatsome circumstances now unknown MAY have justified what at presentappears unjustifiable. Two events are reported by the same author inthe same sentence; their truth rests on the same testimony; but the onesupports the darling hypothesis, and the other seems inconsistent withit. The one is taken and the other is left. 

The practice of distorting narrative into a conformity with theory isa vice not so unfavourable as at first sight it may appear to theinterests of political science. We have compared the writers who indulgein it to advocates; and we may add, that their conflicting fallacies, like those of advocates, correct each other. It has always been held, in the most enlightened nations, that a tribunal will decide a judicialquestion most fairly when it has heard two able men argue, as unfairlyas possible, on the two opposite sides of it; and we are inclinedto think that this opinion is just. Sometimes, it is true, superioreloquence and dexterity will make the worse appear the better reason;but it is at least certain that the judge will be compelled tocontemplate the case under two different aspects. It is certain that noimportant consideration will altogether escape notice. 

This is at present the state of history. The poet laureate appears forthe Church of England, Lingard for the Church of Rome. Brodie has movedto set aside the verdicts obtained by Hume; and the cause in whichMitford succeeded is, we understand, about to be reheard. In the midstof these disputes, however, history proper, if we may use the term, isdisappearing. The high, grave, impartial summing up of Thucydides isnowhere to be found. 

While our historians are practising all the arts of controversy, theymiserably neglect the art of narration, the art of interesting theaffections and presenting pictures to the imagination. That a writer mayproduce these effects without violating truth is sufficiently provedby many excellent biographical works. The immense popularity whichwell-written books of this kind have acquired deserves the seriousconsideration of historians. Voltaire's Charles the Twelfth, Marmontel'sMemoirs, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Southey's account of Nelson, areperused with delight by the most frivolous and indolent. Wheneverany tolerable book of the same description makes its appearance, thecirculating libraries are mobbed; the book societies are in commotion;the new novel lies uncut; the magazines and newspapers fill theircolumns with extracts. In the meantime histories of great empires, written by men of eminent ability, lie unread on the shelves ofostentatious libraries. 

The writers of history seem to entertain an aristocratical contempt forthe writers of memoirs. They think it beneath the dignity of men whodescribe the revolutions of nations to dwell on the details whichconstitute the charm of biography. They have imposed on themselves acode of conventional decencies as absurd as that which has been thebane of the French drama. The most characteristic and interestingcircumstances are omitted or softened down, because, as we are told, they are too trivial for the majesty of history. The majesty of historyseems to resemble the majesty of the poor King of Spain, who died amartyr to ceremony because the proper dignitaries were not at hand torender him assistance. 

That history would be more amusing if this etiquette were relaxed will, we suppose, be acknowledged. But would it be less dignified or lessuseful? What do we mean when we say that one past event is important andanother insignificant? No past event has any intrinsic importance. The knowledge of it is valuable only as it leads us to form justcalculations with respect to the future. A history which does notserve this purpose, though it may be filled with battles, treaties, andcommotions, is as useless as the series of turnpike tickets collected bySir Matthew Mite. 

Let us suppose that Lord Clarendon, instead of filling hundreds of foliopages with copies of state papers, in which the same assertionsand contradictions are repeated till the reader is overpowered withweariness, had condescended to be the Boswell of the Long Parliament. Let us suppose that he had exhibited to us the wise and loftyself-government of Hampden, leading while he seemed to follow, andpropounding unanswerable arguments in the strongest forms with themodest air of an inquirer anxious for information; the delusions whichmisled the noble spirit of Vane; the coarse fanaticism which concealedthe yet loftier genius of Cromwell, destined to control a motionlessarmy and a factious people, to abase the flag of Holland, to arrestthe victorious arms of Sweden, and to hold the balance firm between therival monarchies of France and Spain. Let us suppose that he had madehis Cavaliers and Roundheads talk in their own style; that he hadreported some of the ribaldry of Rupert's pages, and some of the cant ofHarrison and Fleetwood. Would not his work in that case have been moreinteresting? Would it not have been more accurate?

A history in which every particular incident may be true may on thewhole be false. The circumstances which have most influence on thehappiness of mankind, the changes of manners and morals, the transitionof communities from poverty to wealth, from knowledge to ignorance, from ferocity to humanity--these are, for the most part, noiselessrevolutions. Their progress is rarely indicated by what historians arepleased to call important events. They are not achieved by armies, orenacted by senates. They are sanctioned by no treaties, and recordedin no archives. They are carried on in every school, in every church, behind ten thousand counters, at ten thousand firesides. The uppercurrent of society presents no certain criterion by which we can judgeof the direction in which the under current flows. We read of defeatsand victories. But we know that nations may be miserable amidstvictories and prosperous amidst defeats. We read of the fall of wiseministers and of the rise of profligate favourites. But we must rememberhow small a proportion the good or evil effected by a single statesmancan bear to the good or evil of a great social system. 

Bishop Watson compares a geologist to a gnat mounted on an elephant, and laying down theories as to the whole internal structure of the vastanimal, from the phenomena of the hide. The comparison is unjust to thegeologists; but is very applicable to those historians who write asif the body politic were homogeneous, who look only on the surface ofaffairs, and never think of the mighty and various organisation whichlies deep below. 

In the works of such writers as these, England, at the close of theSeven Years' War, is in the highest state of prosperity: at the close ofthe American war she is in a miserable and degraded condition; as ifthe people were not on the whole as rich, as well governed, and aswell educated at the latter period as at the former. We have read bookscalled Histories of England, under the reign of George the Second, inwhich the rise of Methodism is not even mentioned. A hundred years hencethis breed of authors will, we hope, be extinct. If it should stillexist, the late ministerial interregnum will be described in terms whichwill seem to imply that all government was at an end; that the socialcontract was annulled; and that the hand of every man was against hisneighbour, until the wisdom and virtue of the new cabinet educed orderout of the chaos of anarchy. We are quite certain that misconceptionsas gross prevail at this moment respecting many important parts of ourannals. 

The effect of historical reading is analogous, in many respects, tothat produced by foreign travel. The student, like the tourist, istransported into a new state of society. He sees new fashions. He hearsnew modes of expression. His mind is enlarged by contemplating the widediversities of laws, of morals, and of manners. But men may travel far, and return with minds as contracted as if they had never stirred fromtheir own market-town. In the same manner, men may know the dates ofmany battles and the genealogies of many royal houses, and yet beno wiser. Most people look at past times as princes look at foreigncountries. More than one illustrious stranger has landed on our islandamidst the shouts of a mob, has dined with the king, has hunted with themaster of the stag-hounds, has seen the guards reviewed, and a knightof the garter installed, has cantered along Regent Street, has visitedSaint Paul's, and noted down its dimensions; and has then departed, thinking that he has seen England. He has, in fact, seen a few publicbuildings, public men, and public ceremonies. But of the vast andcomplex system of society, of the fine shades of national character, ofthe practical operation of government and laws, he knows nothing. He whowould understand these things rightly must not confine his observationsto palaces and solemn days. He must see ordinary men as they appear intheir ordinary business and in their ordinary pleasures. He must minglein the crowds of the exchange and the coffee-house. He must obtainadmittance to the convivial table and the domestic hearth. He must bearwith vulgar expressions. He must not shrink from exploring even theretreats of misery. He who wishes to understand the condition of mankindin former ages must proceed on the same principle. If he attends only topublic transactions, to wars, congresses, and debates, his studies willbe as unprofitable as the travels of those imperial, royal, and serenesovereigns who form their judgment of our island from having gone instate to a few fine sights, and from having held formal conferences witha few great officers. 

The perfect historian is he in whose work the character and spirit ofan age is exhibited in miniature. He relates no fact, he attributes noexpression to his characters, which is not authenticated by sufficienttestimony. But, by judicious selection, rejection, and arrangement, hegives to truth those attractions which have been usurped by fiction. In his narrative a due subordination is observed: some transactions areprominent; others retire. But the scale on which he represents them isincreased or diminished, not according to the dignity of the personsconcerned in them, but according to the degree in which they elucidatethe condition of society and the nature of man. He shows us the court, the camp, and the senate. But he shows us also the nation. He considersno anecdote, no peculiarity of manner, no familiar saying, as tooinsignificant for his notice which is not too insignificant toillustrate the operation of laws, of religion, and of education, and tomark the progress of the human mind. Men will not merely be described, but will be made intimately known to us. The changes of manners will beindicated, not merely by a few general phrases or a few extracts fromstatistical documents, but by appropriate images presented in everyline. 

If a man, such as we are supposing, should write the history of England, he would assuredly not omit the battles, the sieges, the negotiations, the seditions, the ministerial changes. But with these he wouldintersperse the details which are the charm of historical romances. AtLincoln Cathedral there is a beautiful painted window, which was made byan apprentice out of the pieces of glass which had been rejected byhis master. It is so far superior to every other in the church, that, according to the tradition, the vanquished artist killed himself frommortification. Sir Walter Scott, in the same manner, has used thosefragments of truth which historians have scornfully thrown behind themin a manner which may well excite their envy. He has constructed out oftheir gleanings works which, even considered as histories, are scarcelyless valuable than theirs. But a truly great historian would reclaimthose materials which the novelist has appropriated. The history of thegovernment, and the history of the people, would be exhibited inthat mode in which alone they can be exhibited justly, in inseparableconjunction and intermixture. We should not then have to look for thewars and votes of the Puritans in Clarendon, and for their phraseologyin Old Mortality; for one half of King James in Hume, and for the otherhalf in the Fortunes of Nigel. 

The early part of our imaginary history would be rich with colouringfrom romance, ballad, and chronicle. We should find ourselves in thecompany of knights such as those of Froissart, and of pilgrims such asthose who rode with Chaucer from the Tabard. Society would be shown fromthe highest to the lowest, --from the royal cloth of state to the den ofthe outlaw; from the throne of the legate to the chimney-corner wherethe begging friar regaled himself. Palmers, minstrels, crusaders, --thestately monastery, with the good cheer in its refectory and thehigh-mass in its chapel, --the manor-house, with its hunting andhawking, --the tournament, with the heralds and ladies, the trumpets andthe cloth of gold, --would give truth and life to the representation. We should perceive, in a thousand slight touches, the importance ofthe privileged burgher, and the fierce and haughty spirit which swelledunder the collar of the degraded villain. The revival of letters wouldnot merely be described in a few magnificent periods. We should discern, in innumerable particulars, the fermentation of mind, the eager appetitefor knowledge, which distinguished the sixteenth from the fifteenthcentury. In the Reformation we should see, not merely a schism whichchanged the ecclesiastical constitution of England and the mutualrelations of the European powers, but a moral war which raged in everyfamily, which set the father against the son, and the son against thefather, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against themother. Henry would be painted with the skill of Tacitus. We should havethe change of his character from his profuse and joyous youth to hissavage and imperious old age. We should perceive the gradual progressof selfish and tyrannical passions in a mind not naturally insensible orungenerous; and to the last we should detect some remains of that openand noble temper which endeared him to a people whom he oppressed, struggling with the hardness of despotism and the irritability ofdisease. We should see Elizabeth in all her weakness and in all herstrength, surrounded by the handsome favourites whom she never trusted, and the wise old statesmen whom she never dismissed, uniting in herselfthe most contradictory qualities of both her parents, --the coquetry, thecaprice, the petty malice of Anne, --the haughty and resolute spirit ofHenry. We have no hesitation in saying that a great artist might producea portrait of this remarkable woman at least as striking as that in thenovel of Kenilworth, without employing a single trait not authenticatedby ample testimony. In the meantime, we should see arts cultivated, wealth accumulated, the conveniences of life improved. We should see thekeeps, where nobles, insecure themselves, spread insecurity around them, gradually giving place to the halls of peaceful opulence, to the orielsof Longleat, and the stately pinnacles of Burleigh. We should see townsextended, deserts cultivated, the hamlets of fishermen turned intowealthy havens, the meal of the peasant improved, and his hut morecommodiously furnished. We should see those opinions and feelings whichproduced the great struggle against the House of Stuart slowly growingup in the bosom of private families, before they manifested themselvesin parliamentary debates. Then would come the civil war. Thoseskirmishes on which Clarendon dwells so minutely would be told, asThucydides would have told them, with perspicuous conciseness. They aremerely connecting links. But the great characteristics of the age, theloyal enthusiasm of the brave English gentry, the fierce licentiousnessof the swearing, dicing, drunken reprobates, whose excesses disgracedthe royal cause, --the austerity of the Presbyterian Sabbaths in thecity, the extravagance of the independent preachers in the camp, theprecise garb, the severe countenance, the petty scruples, the affectedaccent, the absurd names and phrases which marked the Puritans, --thevalour, the policy, the public spirit, which lurked beneath theseungraceful disguises, --the dreams of the raving Fifth-monarchy-man, thedreams, scarcely less wild, of the philosophic republican, all thesewould enter into the representation, and render it at once more exactand more striking. 

The instruction derived from history thus written would be of a vividand practical character. It would be received by the imagination as wellas by the reason. It would be not merely traced on the mind, but brandedinto it. Many truths, too, would be learned, which can be learned inno other manner. As the history of states is generally written, thegreatest and most momentous revolutions seem to come upon them likesupernatural inflictions, without warning or cause. But the fact is, that such revolutions are almost always the consequences of moralchanges, which have gradually passed on the mass of the community, andwhich originally proceed far before their progress is indicated by anypublic measure. An intimate knowledge of the domestic history of nationsis therefore absolutely necessary to the prognosis of political events. A narrative, defective in this respect, is as useless as a medicaltreatise which should pass by all the symptoms attendant on the earlystage of a disease and mention only what occurs when the patient isbeyond the reach of remedies. 

A historian, such as we have been attempting to describe, would indeedbe an intellectual prodigy. In his mind, powers scarcely compatible witheach other must be tempered into an exquisite harmony. We shall soonersee another Shakspeare or another Homer. The highest excellence to whichany single faculty can be brought would be less surprising than such ahappy and delicate combination of qualities. Yet the contemplation ofimaginary models is not an unpleasant or useless employment of the mind. It cannot indeed produce perfection; but it produces improvementand nourishes that generous and liberal fastidiousness which is notinconsistent with the strongest sensibility to merit, and which, whileit exalts our conceptions of the art, does not render us unjust to theartist. 

*****

MILL ON GOVERNMENT. (March 1829. )

 "Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, the Liberty of the Press, Prisons, and Prison Discipline, Colonies, the Law of Nations, and Education. " By James Mill, Esq. , author of the History of British India. Reprinted by permission from the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. (Not for sale. ) London, 1828. 

Of those philosophers who call themselves Utilitarians, and whom othersgenerally call Benthamites, Mr Mill is, with the exception of theillustrious founder of the sect, by far the most distinguished. Thelittle work now before us contains a summary of the opinions held bythis gentleman and his brethren on several subjects most important tosociety. All the seven essays of which it consists abound in curiousmatter. But at present we intend to confine our remarks to the Treatiseon Government, which stands first in the volume. On some futureoccasion, we may perhaps attempt to do justice to the rest. 

It must be owned that to do justice to any composition of Mr Mill isnot, in the opinion of his admirers, a very easy task. They do not, indeed, place him in the same rank with Mr Bentham; but the terms inwhich they extol the disciple, though feeble when compared with thehyperboles of adoration employed by them in speaking of the master, areas strong as any sober man would allow himself to use concerning Lockeor Bacon. The essay before us is perhaps the most remarkable of theworks to which Mr Mill owes his fame. By the members of his sect, it isconsidered as perfect and unanswerable. Every part of it is an articleof their faith; and the damnatory clauses, in which their creed aboundsfar beyond any theological symbol with which we are acquainted, arestrong and full against all who reject any portion of what is soirrefragably established. No man, they maintain, who has understandingsufficient to carry him through the first proposition of Euclid, canread this masterpiece of demonstration and honestly declare that heremains unconvinced. 

We have formed a very different opinion of this work. We think that thetheory of Mr Mill rests altogether on false principles, and that even onthose false principles he does not reason logically. Nevertheless, wedo not think it strange that his speculations should have filled theUtilitarians with admiration. We have been for some time past inclinedto suspect that these people, whom some regard as the lights of theworld and others as incarnate demons, are in general ordinary men, withnarrow understandings and little information. The contempt which theyexpress for elegant literature is evidently the contempt of ignorance. We apprehend that many of them are persons who, having read littleor nothing, are delighted to be rescued from the sense of their owninferiority by some teacher who assures them that the studies whichthey have neglected are of no value, puts five or six phrases into theirmouths, lends them an old number of the Westminster Review, and in amonth transforms them into philosophers. Mingled with these smatterers, whose attainments just suffice to elevate them from the insignificanceof dunces to the dignity of bores, and to spread dismay among theirpious aunts and grandmothers, there are, we well know, many well-meaningmen who have really read and thought much; but whose reading andmeditation have been almost exclusively confined to one class ofsubjects; and who, consequently, though they possess much valuableknowledge respecting those subjects, are by no means so well qualifiedto judge of a great system as if they had taken a more enlarged view ofliterature and society. 

Nothing is more amusing or instructive than to observe the manner inwhich people who think themselves wiser than all the rest of the worldfall into snares which the simple good sense of their neighbours detectsand avoids. It is one of the principle tenets of the Utilitarians thatsentiment and eloquence serve only to impede the pursuit of truth. Theytherefore affect a quakerly plainness, or rather a cynical negligenceand impurity, of style. The strongest arguments, when clothed inbrilliant language, seem to them so much wordy nonsense. In the meantimethey surrender their understandings, with a facility found in no otherparty, to the meanest and most abject sophisms, provided those sophismscome before them disguised with the externals of demonstration. They donot seem to know that logic has its illusions as well as rhetoric, --thata fallacy may lurk in a syllogism as well as in a metaphor. 

Mr Mill is exactly the writer to please people of this description. His arguments are stated with the utmost affectation of precision; hisdivisions are awfully formal; and his style is generally as dry as thatof Euclid's Elements. Whether this be a merit, we must be permitted todoubt. Thus much is certain: that the ages in which the true principlesof philosophy were least understood were those in which the ceremonialof logic was most strictly observed, and that the time from which wedate the rapid progress of the experimental sciences was also the timeat which a less exact and formal way of writing came into use. 

The style which the Utilitarians admire suits only those subjects onwhich it is possible to reason a priori. It grew up with the verbalsophistry which flourished during the dark ages. With that sophistry itfell before the Baconian philosopher in the day of the great deliveranceof the human mind. The inductive method not only endured but requiredgreater freedom of diction. It was impossible to reason from phenomenaup to principles, to mark slight shades of difference in quality, or toestimate the comparative effect of two opposite considerations betweenwhich there was no common measure, by means of the naked and meagrejargon of the schoolmen. Of those schoolmen Mr Mill has inheritedboth the spirit and the style. He is an Aristotelian of the fifteenthcentury, born out of due season. We have here an elaborate treatise onGovernment, from which, but for two or three passing allusions, itwould not appear that the author was aware that any governments actuallyexisted among men. Certain propensities of human nature are assumed;and from these premises the whole science of politics is syntheticallydeduced! We can scarcely persuade ourselves that we are not reading abook written before the time of Bacon and Galileo, --a book written inthose days in which physicians reasoned from the nature of heat to thetreatment of fever, and astronomers proved syllogistically that theplanets could have no independent motion, --because the heavens wereincorruptible, and nature abhorred a vacuum!

The reason, too, which Mr Mill has assigned for taking this coursestrikes us as most extraordinary. 

"Experience, " says he, "if we look only at the outside of the facts, appears to be DIVIDED on this subject. Absolute monarchy, under Nerosand Caligulas, under such men as the Emperors of Morocco and Sultans ofTurkey, is the scourge of human nature. On the other side, the people ofDenmark, tired out with the oppression of an aristocracy, resolved thattheir king should be absolute; and, under their absolute monarch, are aswell governed as any people in Europe. "

This Mr Mill actually gives as a reason for pursuing the a priorimethod. But, in our judgment, the very circumstances which he mentionsirresistibly prove that the a priori method is altogether unfit forinvestigations of this kind, and that the only way to arrive at thetruth is by induction. EXPERIENCE can never be divided, or even appearto be divided, except with reference to some hypothesis. When we saythat one fact is inconsistent with another fact, we mean only that it isinconsistent with THE THEORY which we have founded on that other fact. But, if the fact be certain, the unavoidable conclusion is that ourtheory is false; and, in order to correct it, we must reason back froman enlarged collection of facts to principles. 

Now here we have two governments which, by Mr Mill's own account, comeunder the same head in his THEORETICAL classification. It is evident, therefore, that, by reasoning on that theoretical classification, weshall be brought to the conclusion that these two forms of governmentmust produce the same effects. But Mr Mill himself tells us that they donot produce the same effects. Hence he infers that the only way to getat truth is to place implicit confidence in that chain of proof apriori from which it appears that they must produce the same effects!To believe at once in a theory and in a fact which contradicts it is anexercise of faith sufficiently hard: but to believe in a theory BECAUSEa fact contradicts it is what neither philosopher nor pope ever beforerequired. This, however, is what Mr Mill demands of us. He seems tothink that, if all despots, without exception, governed ill, it wouldbe unnecessary to prove, by a synthetical argument, what would thenbe sufficiently clear from experience. But, as some despots will beso perverse as to govern well, he finds himself compelled to prove theimpossibility of their governing well by that synthetical argumentwhich would have been superfluous had not the facts contradicted it. He reasons a priori, because the phenomena are not what, by reasoning apriori, he will prove them to be. In other words, he reasons a priori, because, by so reasoning, he is certain to arrive at a false conclusion!

In the course of the examination to which we propose to subject thespeculations of Mr Mill we shall have to notice many other curiousinstances of that turn of mind which the passage above quoted indicates. 

The first chapter of his Essay relates to the ends of government. Theconception on this subject, he tells us, which exists in the minds ofmost men is vague and undistinguishing. He first assumes, justly enough, that the end of government is "to increase to the utmost the pleasures, and diminish to the utmost the pains, which men derive from each other. "He then proceeds to show, with great form, that "the greatest possiblehappiness of society is attained by insuring to every man the greatestpossible quantity of the produce of his labour. " To effect this is, inhis opinion, the end of government. It is remarkable that Mr Mill, withall his affected display of precision, has here given a description ofthe ends of government far less precise than that which is in the mouthsof the vulgar. The first man with whom Mr Mill may travel in a stagecoach will tell him that government exists for the protection ofthe PERSONS and property of men. But Mr Mill seems to think that thepreservation of property is the first and only object. It is true, doubtless, that many of the injuries which are offered to the persons ofmen proceed from a desire to possess their property. But the practice ofvindictive assassination as it has existed in some parts of Europe--thepractice of fighting wanton and sanguinary duels, like those of thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which bands of seconds riskedtheir lives as well as the principals;--these practices, and many otherswhich might be named, are evidently injurious to society; and we do notsee how a government which tolerated them could be said "to diminishto the utmost the pains which men derive from each other. " Therefore, according to Mr Mill's very correct assumption, such a governmentwould not perfectly accomplish the end of its institution. Yet such agovernment might, as far as we can perceive, "insure to every man thegreatest possible quantity of the produce of his labour. " Thereforesuch a government might, according to Mr Mill's subsequent doctrine, perfectly accomplish the end of its institution. The matter is not ofmuch consequence, except as an instance of that slovenliness of thinkingwhich is often concealed beneath a peculiar ostentation of logicalneatness. 

Having determined the ends, Mr Mill proceeds to consider the means. For the preservation of property some portion of the community must beintrusted with power. This is government; and the question is, how arethose to whom the necessary power is intrusted to be prevented fromabusing it?

Mr Mill first passes in review the simple forms of government. He allowsthat it would be inconvenient, if not physically impossible, that thewhole community should meet in a mass; it follows, therefore, that thepowers of government cannot be directly exercised by the people. But hesees no objection to pure and direct Democracy, except the difficultywhich we have mentioned. 

"The community, " says he, "cannot have an interest opposite to itsinterests. To affirm this would be a contradiction in terms. Thecommunity within itself, and with respect to itself, can have nosinister interest. One community may intend the evil of another;never its own. This is an indubitable proposition, and one of greatimportance. "

Mr Mill then proceeds to demonstrate that a purely aristocratical formof government is necessarily bad. 

"The reason for which government exists is, that one man, if strongerthan another, will take from him whatever that other possesses and hedesires. But if one man will do this, so will several. And if powersare put into the hands of a comparatively small number, called anaristocracy, --powers which make them stronger than the rest of thecommunity, they will take from the rest of the community as much as theyplease of the objects of desire. They will thus defeat the very endfor which government was instituted. The unfitness, therefore, of anaristocracy to be intrusted with the powers of government, rests ondemonstration. "

In exactly the same manner Mr Mill proves absolute monarchy to be a badform of government. 

"If government is founded upon this as a law of human nature, that aman, if able, will take from others anything which they have and hedesires, it is sufficiently evident, that when a man is called a king hedoes not change his nature; so that when he has got power to enablehim to take from every man what he pleases, he will take whatever hepleases. To suppose that he will not, is to affirm that governmentis unnecessary, and that human beings will abstain from injuring oneanother of their own accord. "

"It is very evident that this reasoning extends to every modification ofthe smaller number. Whenever the powers of government are placed in anyhands other than those of the community, whether those of one man, ofa few, or of several, those principles of human nature which imply thatgovernment is at all necessary, imply that those persons will make useof them to defeat the very end for which government exists. "

But is it not possible that a king or an aristocracy may soon besaturated with the objects of their desires, and may then protect thecommunity in the enjoyment of the rest? Mr Mill answers in the negative. He proves, with great pomp, that every man desires to have the actionsof every other correspondent to his will. Others can be induced toconform to our will only by motives derived from pleasure or from pain. The infliction of pain is of course direct injury; and, even if it takethe milder course, in order to produce obedience by motives derived frompleasure, the government must confer favours. But, as there is no limitto its desire of obedience, there will be no limit to its dispositionto confer favours; and, as it can confer favours only by plundering thepeople, there will be no limit to its disposition to plunder the people. It is therefore not true that there is in the mind of a king, or in theminds of an aristocracy, any point of saturation with the objects ofdesire. 

Mr Mill then proceeds to show that, as monarchical and oligarchicalgovernments can influence men by motives drawn from pain, as well as bymotives drawn from pleasure, they will carry their cruelty, as well astheir rapacity, to a frightful extent. As he seems greatly to admire hisown reasonings on this subject, we think it but fair to let him speakfor himself. 

"The chain of inference in this case is close and strong to a mostunusual degree. A man desires that the actions of other men shall beinstantly and accurately correspondent to his will. He desires that theactions of the greatest possible number shall be so. Terror is the grandinstrument. Terror can work only through assurance that evil will followany failure of conformity between the will and the actions willed. Everyfailure must therefore be punished. As there are no bounds to the mind'sdesire of its pleasure, there are, of course, no bounds to its desire ofperfection in the instruments of that pleasure. There are, therefore, nobounds to its desire of exactness in the conformity between its will andthe actions willed; and by consequence to the strength of that terrorwhich is its procuring cause. Even the most minute failure mustbe visited with the heaviest infliction; and as failure in extremeexactness must frequently happen, the occasions of cruelty must beincessant. 

"We have thus arrived at several conclusions of the highest possibleimportance. We have seen that the principle of human nature, upon whichthe necessity of government is founded, the propensity of one man topossess himself of the objects of desire at the cost of another, leadson, by infallible sequence, where power over a community is attained, and nothing checks, not only to that degree of plunder which leaves themembers (excepting always the recipients and instruments of the plunder)the bare means of subsistence, but to that degree of cruelty which isnecessary to keep in existence the most intense terrors. "

Now, no man who has the least knowledge of the real state of theworld, either in former ages or at the present moment, can possibly beconvinced, though he may perhaps be bewildered, by arguments like these. During the last two centuries, some hundreds of absolute princes havereigned in Europe. Is it true, that their cruelty has kept in existencethe most intense degree of terror; that their rapacity has left nomore than the bare means of subsistence to any of their subjects, theirministers and soldiers excepted? Is this true of all of them? Of onehalf of them? Of one tenth part of them? Of a single one? Is it true, inthe full extent, even of Philip the Second, of Louis the Fifteenth, orof the Emperor Paul? But it is scarcely necessary to quote history. Noman of common sense, however ignorant he may be of books, can be imposedon by Mr Mill's argument; because no man of common sense can live amonghis fellow-creatures for a day without seeing innumerable facts whichcontradict it. It is our business, however, to point out its fallacy;and happily the fallacy is not very recondite. 

We grant that rulers will take as much as they can of the objects oftheir desires; and that, when the agency of other men is necessary tothat end, they will attempt by all means in their power to enforce theprompt obedience of such men. But what are the objects of human desire?Physical pleasure, no doubt, in part. But the mere appetites which wehave in common with the animals would be gratified almost as cheaply andeasily as those of the animals are gratified, if nothing were given totaste, to ostentation, or to the affections. How small a portion of theincome of a gentleman in easy circumstances is laid out merely in givingpleasurable sensations to the body of the possessor! The greaterpart even of what is spent on his kitchen and his cellar goes, not totitillate his palate, but to keep up his character for hospitality, tosave him from the reproach of meanness in housekeeping, and tocement the ties of good neighbourhood. It is clear that a king or anaristocracy may be supplied to satiety with mere corporal pleasures, atan expense which the rudest and poorest community would scarcely feel. 

Those tastes and propensities which belong to us as reasoning andimaginative beings are not indeed so easily gratified. There is, weadmit, no point of saturation with objects of desire which come underthis head. And therefore the argument of Mr Mill will be just, unlessthere be something in the nature of the objects of desire themselveswhich is inconsistent with it. Now, of these objects there is none whichmen in general seem to desire more than the good opinion of others. Thehatred and contempt of the public are generally felt to beintolerable. It is probable that our regard for the sentiments of ourfellow-creatures springs, by association, from a sense of their abilityto hurt or to serve us. But, be this as it may, it is notorious that, when the habit of mind of which we speak has once been formed, men feelextremely solicitous about the opinions of those by whom it is mostimprobable, nay, absolutely impossible, that they should ever be in theslightest degree injured or benefited. The desire of posthumous fame andthe dread of posthumous reproach and execration are feelings from theinfluence of which scarcely any man is perfectly free, and which in manymen are powerful and constant motives of action. As we are afraid that, if we handle this part of the argument after our own manner, we shallincur the reproach of sentimentality, a word which, in the sacredlanguage of the Benthamites, is synonymous with idiocy, we willquote what Mr Mill himself says on the subject, in his Treatise onJurisprudence. 

"Pains from the moral source are the pains derived from the unfavourablesentiments of mankind. .. These pains are capable of rising to a heightwith which hardly any other pains incident to our nature can becompared. There is a certain degree of unfavourableness in thesentiments of his fellow-creatures, under which hardly any man, notbelow the standard of humanity, can endure to live. 

"The importance of this powerful agency, for the prevention of injuriousacts, is too obvious to need to be illustrated. If sufficiently atcommand, it would almost supersede the use of other means. .. 

"To know how to direct the unfavourable sentiments of mankind, it isnecessary to know in as complete, that is, in as comprehensive, a way aspossible, what it is which gives them birth. Without entering into themetaphysics of the question, it is a sufficient practical answer, forthe present purpose, to say that the unfavourable sentiments of man areexcited by everything which hurts them. "

It is strange that a writer who considers the pain derived from theunfavourable sentiments of others as so acute that, if sufficiently atcommand, it would supersede the use of the gallows and the tread-mill, should take no notice of this most important restraint when discussingthe question of government. We will attempt to deduce a theory ofpolitics in the mathematical form, in which Mr Mill delights, from thepremises with which he has himself furnished us. 

PROPOSITION I. THEOREM. 

No rulers will do anything which may hurt the people. 

This is the thesis to be maintained; and the following we humbly offerto Mr Mill, as its syllogistic demonstration. 

No rulers will do that which produces pain to themselves. 

But the unfavourable sentiments of the people will give pain to them. 

Therefore no rulers will do anything which may excite the unfavourablesentiments of the people. 

But the unfavourable sentiments of the people are excited by everythingwhich hurts them. 

Therefore no rulers will do anything which may hurt the people. Whichwas the thing to be proved. 

Having thus, as we think, not unsuccessfully imitated Mr Mill's logic, we do not see why we should not imitate, what is at least equallyperfect in its kind, its self-complacency, and proclaim our Eurekain his own words: "The chain of inference, in this case, is close andstrong to a most unusual degree. "

The fact is, that, when men, in treating of things which cannot becircumscribed by precise definitions, adopt this mode of reasoning, whenonce they begin to talk of power, happiness, misery, pain, pleasure, motives, objects of desire, as they talk of lines and numbers, there isno end to the contradictions and absurdities into which they fall. Thereis no proposition so monstrously untrue in morals or politics that wewill not undertake to prove it, by something which shall sound like alogical demonstration from admitted principles. 

Mr Mill argues that, if men are not inclined to plunder each other, government is unnecessary; and that, if they are so inclined, thepowers of government, when entrusted to a small number of them, willnecessarily be abused. Surely it is not by propounding dilemmas of thissort that we are likely to arrive at sound conclusions in any moralscience. The whole question is a question of degree. If all menpreferred the moderate approbation of their neighbours to any degreeof wealth or grandeur, or sensual pleasure, government would beunnecessary. If all men desired wealth so intensely as to be willingto brave the hatred of their fellow-creatures for sixpence, Mr Mill'sargument against monarchies and aristocracies would be true to the fullextent. But the fact is, that all men have some desires which impel themto injure their neighbours, and some desires which impel them to benefittheir neighbours. Now, if there were a community consisting of twoclasses of men, one of which should be principally influenced by the oneset of motives and the other by the other, government would clearly benecessary to restrain the class which was eager for plunder andcareless of reputation: and yet the powers of government might besafely intrusted to the class which was chiefly actuated by the loveof approbation. Now, it might with no small plausibility be maintainedthat, in many countries, THERE ARE two classes which, in some degree, answer to this description; that the poor compose the class whichgovernment is established to restrain, and the people of some propertythe class to which the powers of government may without danger beconfided. It might be said that a man who can barely earn a livelihoodby severe labour is under stronger temptations to pillage others than aman who enjoys many luxuries. It might be said that a man who is lost inthe crowd is less likely to have the fear of public opinion before hiseyes than a man whose station and mode of living render him conspicuous. We do not assert all this. We only say that it was Mr Mill's business toprove the contrary; and that, not having proved the contrary, he is notentitled to say, "that those principles which imply that government isat all necessary, imply that an aristocracy will make use of its powerto defeat the end for which governments exist. " This is not true, unless it be true that a rich man is as likely to covet the goods ofhis neighbours as a poor man, and that a poor man is as likely to besolicitous about the opinions of his neighbours as a rich man. 

But we do not see that, by reasoning a priori on such subjects as these, it is possible to advance one single step. We know that every man hassome desires which he can gratify only by hurting his neighbours, andsome which he can gratify only by pleasing them. Mr Mill has chosento look only at one-half of human nature, and to reason on the motiveswhich impel men to oppress and despoil others, as if they were the onlymotives by which men could possibly be influenced. We have already shownthat, by taking the other half of the human character, and reasoningon it as if it were the whole, we can bring out a result diametricallyopposite to that at which Mr Mill has arrived. We can, by such aprocess, easily prove that any form of government is good, or that allgovernment is superfluous. 

We must now accompany Mr Mill on the next stage of his argument. 

Does any combination of the three simple forms of government afford therequisite securities against the abuse of power? Mr Mill complainsthat those who maintain the affirmative generally beg the question;and proceeds to settle the point by proving, after his fashion, thatno combination of the three simple forms, or of any two of them, canpossibly exist. 

"From the principles which we have already laid down it follows that, ofthe objects of human desire, and, speaking more definitely, of the meansto the ends of human desire, namely, wealth and power, each party willendeavour to obtain as much as possible. 

"If any expedient presents itself to any of the supposed partieseffectual to this end, and not opposed to any preferred object ofpursuit, we may infer with certainty that it will be adopted. Oneeffectual expedient is not more effectual than obvious. Any two of theparties, by combining, may swallow up the third. That such combinationwill take place appears to be as certain as anything which depends uponhuman will; because there are strong motives in favour of it, and nonethat can be conceived in opposition to it. .. The mixture of three of thekinds of government, it is thus evident, cannot possibly exist. .. Itmay be proper to enquire whether an union may not be possible of two ofthem. .. 

"Let us first suppose, that monarchy is united with aristocracy. Theirpower is equal or not equal. If it is not equal, it follows, as anecessary consequence, from the principles which we have alreadyestablished, that the stronger will take from the weaker till itengrosses the whole. The only question therefore is, What will happenwhen the power is equal?

"In the first place, it seems impossible that such equality should everexist. How is it to be established? or, by what criterion is it to beascertained? If there is no such criterion, it must, in all cases, bethe result of chance. If so, the chances against it are as infinity toone. The idea, therefore, is wholly chimerical and absurd. .. 

"In this doctrine of the mixture of the simple forms of government isincluded the celebrated theory of the balance among the component partsof a government. By this it is supposed that, when a government iscomposed of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, they balance oneanother, and by mutual checks produce good government. A few words willsuffice to show that, if any theory deserves the epithets of 'wild, visionary, and chimerical, ' it is that of the balance. If there arethree powers, how is it possible to prevent two of them from combiningto swallow up the third?

"The analysis which we have already performed will enable us to tracerapidly the concatenation of causes and effects in this imagined case. 

"We have already seen that the interests of the community, consideredin the aggregate, or in the democratical point of view, is, that eachindividual should receive protection; and that the powers which areconstituted for that purpose should be employed exclusively for thatpurpose. .. We have also seen that the interest of the king and of thegoverning aristocracy is directly the reverse. It is to have unlimitedpower over the rest of the community, and to use it for their ownadvantage. In the supposed case of the balance of the monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical powers, it cannot be for the interestof either the monarchy or the aristocracy to combine with the democracy;because it is the interest of the democracy, or community at large, thatneither the king nor the aristocracy should have one particle of power, or one particle of the wealth of the community, for their own advantage. 

"The democracy or community have all possible motives to endeavour toprevent the monarchy and aristocracy from exercising power, or obtainingthe wealth of the community for their own advantage. The monarchyand aristocracy have all possible motives for endeavouring to obtainunlimited power over the persons and property of the community. Theconsequence is inevitable: they have all possible motives for combiningto obtain that power. "

If any part of this passage be more eminently absurd than another, itis, we think, the argument by which Mr Mill proves that there cannotbe an union of monarchy and aristocracy. Their power, he says, must beequal or not equal. But of equality there is no criterion. Therefore thechances against its existence are as infinity to one. If the power benot equal, then it follows, from the principles of human nature, thatthe stronger will take from the weaker, till it has engrossed the whole. 

Now, if there be no criterion of equality between two portions of powerthere can be no common measure of portions of power. Therefore it isutterly impossible to compare them together. But where two portionsof power are of the same kind, there is no difficulty in ascertaining, sufficiently for all practical purposes, whether they are equal orunequal. It is easy to judge whether two men run equally fast, or canlift equal weights. Two arbitrators, whose joint decision is to befinal, and neither of whom can do anything without the assent of theother, possess equal power. Two electors, each of whom has a vote fora borough, possess, in that respect, equal power. If not, all Mr Mill'spolitical theories fall to the ground at once. For, if it be impossibleto ascertain whether two portions of power are equal, he never can showthat even under a system of universal suffrage, a minority might notcarry every thing their own way, against the wishes and interests of themajority. 

Where there are two portions of power differing in kind, there is, weadmit, no criterion of equality. But then, in such a case, it is absurdto talk, as Mr Mill does, about the stronger and the weaker. Popularly, indeed, and with reference to some particular objects, these wordsmay very fairly be used. But to use them mathematically is altogetherimproper. If we are speaking of a boxing-match, we may say that somefamous bruiser has greater bodily power than any man in England. Ifwe are speaking of a pantomime, we may say the same of some very agileharlequin. But it would be talking nonsense to say, in general, that thepower of Harlequin either exceeded that of the pugilist or fell short ofit. 

If Mr Mill's argument be good as between different branches of alegislature, it is equally good as between sovereign powers. Everygovernment, it may be said, will, if it can, take the objects of itsdesires from every other. If the French government can subdue England itwill do so. If the English government can subdue France it will do so. But the power of England and France is either equal or not equal. Thechance that it is not exactly equal is as infinity to one, and maysafely be left out of the account; and then the stronger will infalliblytake from the weaker till the weaker is altogether enslaved. 

Surely the answer to all this hubbub of unmeaning words is the plainestpossible. For some purposes France is stronger than England. For somepurposes England is stronger than France. For some, neither has anypower at all. France has the greater population, England the greatercapital; France has the greater army, England the greater fleet. For anexpedition to Rio Janeiro or the Philippines, England has the greaterpower. For a war on the Po or the Danube, France has the greater power. But neither has power sufficient to keep the other in quiet subjectionfor a month. Invasion would be very perilous; the idea of completeconquest on either side utterly ridiculous. This is the manly andsensible way of discussing such questions. The ergo, or rather theargal, of Mr Mill cannot impose on a child. Yet we ought scarcely to saythis; for we remember to have heard A CHILD ask whether Bonaparte wasstronger than an elephant!

Mr Mill reminds us of those philosophers of the sixteenth century who, having satisfied themselves a priori that the rapidity with which bodiesdescended to the earth varied exactly as their weights, refused tobelieve the contrary on the evidence of their own eyes and ears. TheBritish constitution, according to Mr Mill's classification, is amixture of monarchy and aristocracy; one House of Parliament beingcomposed of hereditary nobles, and the other almost entirely chosen by aprivileged class who possess the elective franchise on account of theirproperty, or their connection with certain corporations. Mr Mill'sargument proves that, from the time that these two powers were mingledin our government, that is, from the very first dawn of our history, oneor the other must have been constantly encroaching. According to him, moreover, all the encroachments must have been on one side. For thefirst encroachment could only have been made by the stronger; and thatfirst encroachment would have made the stronger stronger still. It is, therefore, matter of absolute demonstration, that either the Parliamentwas stronger than the Crown in the reign of Henry VIII. , or that theCrown was stronger than the Parliament in 1641. "Hippocrate dira ce quelui plaira, " says the girl in Moliere; "mais le cocher est mort. " MrMill may say what he pleases; but the English constitution is stillalive. That since the Revolution the Parliament has possessed greatpower in the State, is what nobody will dispute. The King, on theother hand, can create new peers, and can dissolve Parliaments. Williamsustained severe mortifications from the House of Commons, and was, indeed, unjustifiably oppressed. Anne was desirous to change a ministrywhich had a majority in both Houses. She watched her moment for adissolution, created twelve Tory peers, and succeeded. Thirty yearslater, the House of Commons drove Walpole from his seat. In 1784, GeorgeIII. Was able to keep Mr Pitt in office in the face of a majority of theHouse of Commons. In 1804, the apprehension of a defeat in Parliamentcompelled the same King to part from his most favoured minister. But, in 1807, he was able to do exactly what Anne had done nearly a hundredyears before. Now, had the power of the King increased during theintervening century, or had it remained stationary? Is it possible thatthe one lot among the infinite number should have fallen to us? If not, Mr Mill has proved that one of the two parties must have been constantlytaking from the other. Many of the ablest men in England think that theinfluence of the Crown has, on the whole, increased since the reign ofAnne. Others think that the Parliament has been growing in strength. Butof this there is no doubt, that both sides possessed great power then, and possess great power now. Surely, if there were the least truth inthe argument of Mr Mill, it could not possibly be a matter of doubt, atthe end of a hundred and twenty years, whether the one side or the otherhad been the gainer. 

But we ask pardon. We forgot that a fact, irreconcilable with Mr Mill'stheory, furnishes, in his opinion, the strongest reason for adhering tothe theory. To take up the question in another manner, is it not plainthat there may be two bodies, each possessing a perfect and entirepower, which cannot be taken from it without its own concurrence? Whatis the meaning of the words stronger and weaker, when applied to suchbodies as these? The one may, indeed, by physical force, altogetherdestroy the other. But this is not the question. A third party, ageneral of their own, for example, may, by physical force, subjugatethem both. Nor is there any form of government, Mr Mill's utopiandemocracy not excepted, secure from such an occurrence. We are speakingof the powers with which the constitution invests the two branches ofthe legislature; and we ask Mr Mill how, on his own principles, he canmaintain that one of them will be able to encroach on the other, if theconsent of the other be necessary to such encroachment?

Mr Mill tells us that, if a government be composed of the three simpleforms, which he will not admit the British constitution to be, two ofthe component parts will inevitably join against the third. Now, if twoof them combine and act as one, this case evidently resolves itself intothe last: and all the observations which we have just made will fullyapply to it. Mr Mill says, that "any two of the parties, by combining, may swallow up the third;" and afterwards asks, "How is it possible toprevent two of them from combining to swallow up the third?" Surely MrMill must be aware that in politics two is not always the double ofone. If the concurrence of all the three branches of the legislature benecessary to every law, each branch will possess constitutional powersufficient to protect it against anything but that physical forcefrom which no form of government is secure. Mr Mill reminds us of theIrishman, who could not be brought to understand how one juryman couldpossibly starve out eleven others. 

But is it certain that two of the branches of the legislature willcombine against the third? "It appears to be as certain, " says Mr Mill, "as anything which depends upon human will; because there are strongmotives in favour of it, and none that can be conceived in opposition toit. " He subsequently sets forth what these motives are. The interestof the democracy is that each individual should receive protection. Theinterest of the King and the aristocracy is to have all the power thatthey can obtain, and to use it for their own ends. Therefore the Kingand the aristocracy have all possible motives for combining against thepeople. If our readers will look back to the passage quoted above, theywill see that we represent Mr Mill's argument quite fairly. 

Now we should have thought that, without the help of either historyor experience, Mr Mill would have discovered, by the light of his ownlogic, the fallacy which lurks, and indeed scarcely lurks, under thispretended demonstration. The interest of the King may be opposed to thatof the people. But is it identical with that of the aristocracy? In thevery page which contains this argument, intended to prove that the Kingand the aristocracy will coalesce against the people, Mr Mill attemptsto show that there is so strong an opposition of interest between theKing and the aristocracy that if the powers of government are dividedbetween them the one will inevitably usurp the power of the other. Ifso, he is not entitled to conclude that they will combine to destroy thepower of the people merely because their interests may be at variancewith those of the people. He is bound to show, not merely that inall communities the interest of a king must be opposed to that of thepeople, but also that, in all communities, it must be more directlyopposed to the interest of the people than to the interest of thearistocracy. But he has not shown this. Therefore he has not provedhis proposition on his own principles. To quote history would be a merewaste of time. Every schoolboy, whose studies have gone so far as theAbridgments of Goldsmith, can mention instances in which sovereigns haveallied themselves with the people against the aristocracy, and in whichthe nobles have allied themselves with the people against the sovereign. In general, when there are three parties, every one of which has muchto fear from the others, it is not found that two of them combine toplunder the third. If such a combination be formed, it scarcely evereffects its purpose. It soon becomes evident which member of thecoalition is likely to be the greater gainer by the transaction. Hebecomes an object of jealousy to his ally, who, in all probability, changes sides, and compels him to restore what he has taken. Everybodyknows how Henry VIII. Trimmed between Francis and the Emperor Charles. But it is idle to cite examples of the operation of a principle which isillustrated in almost every page of history, ancient or modern, and towhich almost every state in Europe has, at one time or another, beenindebted for its independence. 

Mr Mill has now, as he conceives, demonstrated that the simple formsof government are bad, and that the mixed forms cannot possibly exist. There is still, however, it seems, a hope for mankind. 

"In the grand discovery of modern times, the system of representation, the solution of all the difficulties, both speculative and practical, will perhaps be found. If it cannot, we seem to be forced upon theextraordinary conclusion, that good government is impossible. For, as there is no individual or combination of individuals, except thecommunity itself, who would not have an interest in bad government ifintrusted with its powers, and as the community itself is incapable ofexercising those powers, and must intrust them to certain individuals, the conclusion is obvious: the community itself must check thoseindividuals; else they will follow their interest, and produce badgovernment. But how is it the community can check? The community can actonly when assembled; and when assembled, it is incapable of acting. Thecommunity, however, can choose representatives. "

The next question is--How must the representative body be constituted?Mr Mill lays down two principles, about which, he says, "it is unlikelythat there will be any dispute. "

"First, The checking body must have a degree of power sufficient for thebusiness of checking. "

"Secondly, It must have an identity of interest with the community. Otherwise, it will make a mischievous use of its power. "

The first of these propositions certainly admits of no dispute. As tothe second, we shall hereafter take occasion to make some remarks onthe sense in which Mr Mill understands the words "interest of thecommunity. "

It does not appear very easy, on Mr Mill's principles, to find out anymode of making the interest of the representative body identical withthat of the constituent body. The plan proposed by Mr Mill is simplythat of very frequent election. "As it appears, " says he, "that limitingthe duration of their power is a security against the sinister interestof the people's representatives, so it appears that it is the onlysecurity of which the nature of the case admits. " But all the argumentsby which Mr Mill has proved monarchy and aristocracy to be perniciouswill, as it appears to us, equally prove this security to be no securityat all. Is it not clear that the representatives, as soon as they areelected, are an aristocracy, with an interest opposed to the interest ofthe community? Why should they not pass a law for extending the term oftheir power from one year to ten years, or declare themselves senatorsfor life? If the whole legislative power is given to them, they will beconstitutionally competent to do this. If part of the legislative poweris withheld from them, to whom is that part given? Is the people toretain it, and to express its assent or dissent in primary assemblies?Mr Mill himself tells us that the community can only act when assembled, and that, when assembled, it is incapable of acting. Or is it to beprovided, as in some of the American republics, that no change in thefundamental laws shall be made without the consent of a convention, specially elected for the purpose? Still the difficulty recurs: Why maynot the members of the convention betray their trust, as well as themembers of the ordinary legislature? When private men, they may havebeen zealous for the interests of the community. When candidates, theymay have pledged themselves to the cause of the constitution. But, assoon as they are a convention, as soon as they are separated from thepeople, as soon as the supreme power is put into their hands, commencesthat interest opposite to the interest of the community which must, according to Mr Mill, produce measures opposite to the interests of thecommunity. We must find some other means, therefore, of checking thischeck upon a check; some other prop to carry the tortoise, that carriesthe elephant, that carries the world. 

We know well that there is no real danger in such a case. But there isno danger only because there is no truth in Mr Mill's principles. If menwere what he represents them to be, the letter of the very constitutionwhich he recommends would afford no safeguard against bad government. The real security is this, that legislators will be deterred by thefear of resistance and of infamy from acting in the manner which we havedescribed. But restraints, exactly the same in kind, and differingonly in degree, exist in all forms of government. That broad line ofdistinction which Mr Mill tries to point out between monarchies andaristocracies on the one side, and democracies on the other, has in factno existence. In no form of government is there an absolute identityof interest between the people and their rulers. In every form ofgovernment, the rulers stand in some awe of the people. The fear ofresistance and the sense of shame operate in a certain degree, on themost absolute kings and the most illiberal oligarchies. And nothing butthe fear of resistance and the sense of shame preserves the freedom ofthe most democratic communities from the encroachments of their annualand biennial delegates. 

We have seen how Mr Mill proposes to render the interest of therepresentative body identical with that of the constituent body. Thenext question is, in what manner the interest of the constituent body isto be rendered identical with that of the community. Mr Mill shows thata minority of the community, consisting even of many thousands, would bea bad constituent body, and, indeed, merely a numerous aristocracy. 

"The benefits of the representative system, " says he, "are lost in allcases in which the interests of the choosing body are not the same withthose of the community. It is very evident, that if the community itselfwere the choosing body, the interests of the community and that of thechoosing body would be the same. "

On these grounds Mr Mill recommends that all males of mature age, richand poor, educated and ignorant, shall have votes. But why not the womentoo? This question has often been asked in parliamentary debate, and hasnever, to our knowledge, received a plausible answer. Mr Mill escapesfrom it as fast as he can. But we shall take the liberty to dwell alittle on the words of the oracle. "One thing, " says he, "is prettyclear, that all those individuals whose interests are involved in thoseof other individuals, may be struck off without inconvenience. .. Inthis light women may be regarded, the interest of almost all of whom isinvolved either in that of their fathers, or in that of their husbands. "

If we were to content ourselves with saying, in answer to all thearguments in Mr Mill's essay, that the interest of a king is involvedin that of the community, we should be accused, and justly, of talkingnonsense. Yet such an assertion would not, as far as we can perceive, be more unreasonable than that which Mr Mill has here ventured to make. Without adducing one fact, without taking the trouble to perplex thequestion by one sophism, he placidly dogmatises away the interest of onehalf of the human race. If there be a word of truth in history, womenhave always been, and still are, over the greater part of the globe, humble companions, play things, captives, menials, beasts of burden. Except in a few happy and highly civilised communities, they arestrictly in a state of personal slavery. Even in those countries wherethey are best treated, the laws are generally unfavourable to them, with respect to almost all the points in which they are most deeplyinterested. 

Mr Mill is not legislating for England or the United States, but formankind. Is then the interest of a Turk the same with that of the girlswho compose his harem? Is the interest of a Chinese the same with thatof the woman whom he harnesses to his plough? Is the interest of anItalian the same with that of the daughter whom he devotes to God?The interest of a respectable Englishman may be said, without anyimpropriety, to be identical with that of his wife. But why is it so?Because human nature is NOT what Mr Mill conceives it to be; becausecivilised men, pursuing their own happiness in a social state, are notYahoos fighting for carrion; because there is a pleasure in being lovedand esteemed, as well as in being feared and servilely obeyed. Why doesnot a gentleman restrict his wife to the bare maintenance which the lawwould compel him to allow her, that he may have more to spend on hispersonal pleasures? Because, if he loves her, he has pleasure in seeingher pleased; and because, even if he dislikes her, he is unwilling thatthe whole neighbourhood should cry shame on his meanness and ill-nature. Why does not the legislature, altogether composed of males, pass a lawto deprive women of all civil privileges whatever, and reduce them tothe state of slaves? By passing such a law, they would gratify whatMr Mill tells us is an inseparable part of human nature, the desire topossess unlimited power of inflicting pain upon others. That they do notpass such a law, though they have the power to pass it, and that no manin England wishes to see such a law passed, proves that the desire topossess unlimited power of inflicting pain is not inseparable from humannature. 

If there be in this country an identity of interest between the twosexes, it cannot possibly arise from anything but the pleasure of beingloved, and of communicating happiness. For, that it does not spring fromthe mere instinct of sex, the treatment which women experience over thegreater part of the world abundantly proves. And, if it be said that ourlaws of marriage have produced it, this only removes the argument astep further; for those laws have been made by males. Now, if the kindfeelings of one half of the species be a sufficient security for thehappiness of the other, why may not the kind feelings of a monarch oran aristocracy be sufficient at least to prevent them from grinding thepeople to the very utmost of their power?

If Mr Mill will examine why it is that women are better treated inEngland than in Persia, he may perhaps find out, in the course ofhis inquiries, why it is that the Danes are better governed than thesubjects of Caligula. 

We now come to the most important practical question in the whole essay. Is it desirable that all males arrived at years of discretion shouldvote for representatives, or should a pecuniary qualification berequired? Mr Mill's opinion is, that the lower the qualification thebetter; and that the best system is that in which there is none at all. 

"The qualification, " says he, "must either be such as to embracethe majority of the population, or something less than the majority. Suppose, in the first place, that it embraces the majority, the questionis, whether the majority would have an interest in oppressing thosewho, upon this supposition, would be deprived of political power? If wereduce the calculation to its elements, we shall see that the interestwhich they would have of this deplorable kind, though it would besomething, would not be very great. Each man of the majority, if themajority were constituted the governing body, would have something lessthan the benefit of oppressing a single man. If the majority were twiceas great as the minority, each man of the majority would only have onehalf the benefit of oppressing a single man. .. Suppose in the secondplace, that the qualification did not admit a body of electors so largeas the majority, in that case, taking again the calculation in itselements, we shall see that each man would have a benefit equal tothat derived from the oppression of more than one man; and that, inproportion as the elective body constituted a smaller and smallerminority, the benefit of misrule to the elective body would beincreased, and bad government would be insured. "

The first remark which we have to make on this argument is, that, by MrMill's own account, even a government in which every human beingshould vote would still be defective. For, under a system of universalsuffrage, the majority of the electors return the representative, andthe majority of the representatives make the law. The whole people mayvote, therefore; but only the majority govern. So that, by Mr Mill's ownconfession, the most perfect system of government conceivable is one inwhich the interest of the ruling body to oppress, though not great, issomething. 

But is Mr Mill in the right when he says that such an interest couldnot be very great? We think not. If, indeed, every man in the communitypossessed an equal share of what Mr Mill calls the objects of desire, the majority would probably abstain from plundering the minority. Alarge minority would offer a vigorous resistance; and the property ofa small minority would not repay the other members of the communityfor the trouble of dividing it. But it happens that in all civilisedcommunities there is a small minority of rich men, and a great majorityof poor men. If there were a thousand men with ten pounds apiece, itwould not be worth while for nine hundred and ninety of them to robten, and it would be a bold attempt for six hundred of them to rob fourhundred. But, if ten of them had a hundred thousand pounds apiece, thecase would be very different. There would then be much to be got, andnothing to be feared. 

"That one human being will desire to render the person and property ofanother subservient to his pleasures, notwithstanding the pain orloss of pleasure which it may occasion to that other individual, is, "according to Mr Mill, "the foundation of government. " That the propertyof the rich minority can be made subservient to the pleasures of thepoor majority will scarcely be denied. But Mr Mill proposes to give thepoor majority power over the rich minority. Is it possible to doubt towhat, on his own principles, such an arrangement must lead?

It may perhaps be said that, in the long run, it is for the interest ofthe people that property should be secure, and that therefore they willrespect it. We answer thus:--It cannot be pretended that it is not forthe immediate interest of the people to plunder the rich. Therefore, even if it were quite certain that, in the long run, the people would, as a body, lose by doing so, it would not necessarily follow that thefear of remote ill consequences would overcome the desire of immediateacquisitions. Every individual might flatter himself that the punishmentwould not fall on him. Mr Mill himself tells us, in his Essay onJurisprudence, that no quantity of evil which is remote and uncertainwill suffice to prevent crime. 

But we are rather inclined to think that it would, on the whole, befor the interest of the majority to plunder the rich. If so, theUtilitarians will say, that the rich OUGHT to be plundered. We deny theinference. For, in the first place, if the object of government bethe greatest happiness of the greatest number, the intensity of thesuffering which a measure inflicts must be taken into consideration, as well as the number of the sufferers. In the next place, we haveto notice one most important distinction which Mr Mill has altogetheroverlooked. Throughout his essay, he confounds the community with thespecies. He talks of the greatest happiness of the greatest number:but, when we examine his reasonings, we find that he thinks only of thegreatest number of a single generation. 

Therefore, even if we were to concede that all those arguments of whichwe have exposed the fallacy are unanswerable, we might still deny theconclusion at which the essayist arrives. Even if we were to grant thathe had found out the form of government which is best for the majorityof the people now living on the face of the earth, we might stillwithout inconsistency maintain that form of government to be perniciousto mankind. It would still be incumbent on Mr Mill to prove that theinterest of every generation is identical with the interest of allsucceeding generations. And how on his own principles he could do thiswe are at a loss to conceive. 

The case, indeed, is strictly analogous to that of an aristocraticgovernment. In an aristocracy, says Mr Mill, the few being invested withthe powers of government, can take the objects of their desires from thepeople. In the same manner, every generation in turn can gratify itselfat the expense of posterity, --priority of time, in the latter case, giving an advantage exactly corresponding to that which superiorityof station gives in the former. That an aristocracy will abuse itsadvantage, is, according to Mr Mill, matter of demonstration. Is it notequally certain that the whole people will do the same: that, if theyhave the power, they will commit waste of every sort on the estate ofmankind, and transmit it to posterity impoverished and desolated?

How is it possible for any person who holds the doctrines of Mr Mill todoubt that the rich, in a democracy such as that which he recommends, would be pillaged as unmercifully as under a Turkish Pacha? It is nodoubt for the interest of the next generation, and it may be for theremote interest of the present generation, that property should be heldsacred. And so no doubt it will be for the interest of the next Pacha, and even for that of the present Pacha, if he should hold office long, that the inhabitants of his Pachalik should be encouraged to accumulatewealth. Scarcely any despotic sovereign has plundered his subjects to alarge extent without having reason before the end of his reign to regretit. Everybody knows how bitterly Louis the Fourteenth, towards theclose of his life, lamented his former extravagance. If that magnificentprince had not expended millions on Marli and Versailles, and tens ofmillions on the aggrandisement of his grandson, he would not have beencompelled at last to pay servile court to low-born money-lenders, tohumble himself before men on whom, in the days of his pride, he wouldnot have vouchsafed to look, for the means of supporting even his ownhousehold. Examples to the same effect might easily be multiplied. But despots, we see, do plunder their subjects, though history andexperience tell them that, by prematurely exacting the means ofprofusion, they are in fact devouring the seed-corn from which thefuture harvest of revenue is to spring. Why then should we supposethat the people will be deterred from procuring immediate relief andenjoyment by the fear of distant calamities, of calamities which perhapsmay not be fully felt till the times of their grandchildren?

These conclusions are strictly drawn from Mr Mill's own principles: and, unlike most of the conclusions which he has himself drawn from thoseprinciples, they are not as far as we know contradicted by facts. The case of the United States is not in point. In a country where thenecessaries of life are cheap and the wages of labour high, where a manwho has no capital but his legs and arms may expect to become rich byindustry and frugality, it is not very decidedly even for the immediateadvantage of the poor to plunder the rich; and the punishment of doingso would very speedily follow the offence. But in countries in whichthe great majority live from hand to mouth, and in which vast masses ofwealth have been accumulated by a comparatively small number, the caseis widely different. The immediate want is, at particular seasons, craving, imperious, irresistible. In our own time it has steeled mento the fear of the gallows, and urged them on the point of the bayonet. And, if these men had at their command that gallows and those bayonetswhich now scarcely restrain them, what is to be expected? Nor is thisstate of things one which can exist only under a bad government. Ifthere be the least truth in the doctrines of the school to which MrMill belongs, the increase of population will necessarily produce iteverywhere. The increase of population is accelerated by good and cheapgovernment. Therefore, the better the government, the greater is theinequality of conditions: and the greater the inequality of conditions, the stronger are the motives which impel the populace to spoliation. Asfor America, we appeal to the twentieth century. 

It is scarcely necessary to discuss the effects which a generalspoliation of the rich would produce. It may indeed happen that, wherea legal and political system full of abuses is inseparably bound up withthe institution of property, a nation may gain by a single convulsion, in which both perish together. The price is fearful. But if, when theshock is over, a new order of things should arise under which propertymay enjoy security, the industry of individuals will soon repair thedevastation. Thus we entertain no doubt that the Revolution was, on thewhole, a most salutary event for France. But would France have gainedif, ever since the year 1793, she had been governed by a democraticconvention? If Mr Mill's principles be sound, we say that almost herwhole capital would by this time have been annihilated. As soon as thefirst explosion was beginning to be forgotten, as soon as wealth againbegan to germinate, as soon as the poor again began to compare theircottages and salads with the hotels and banquets of the rich, therewould have been another scramble for property, another maximum, anothergeneral confiscation, another reign of terror. Four or five suchconvulsions following each other, at intervals of ten or twelve years, would reduce the most flourishing countries of Europe to the state ofBarbary or the Morea. 

The civilised part of the world has now nothing to fear from thehostility of savage nations. Once the deluge of barbarism has passedover it, to destroy and to fertilise; and in the present state ofmankind we enjoy a full security against that calamity. That flood willno more return to cover the earth. But is it possible that in the bosomof civilisation itself may be engendered the malady which shall destroyit? Is it possible that institutions may be established which, withoutthe help of earthquake, of famine, of pestilence, or of the foreignsword, may undo the work of so many ages of wisdom and glory, andgradually sweep away taste, literature, science, commerce, manufactures, everything but the rude arts necessary to the support of animal life?Is it possible that, in two or three hundred years, a few lean andhalf-naked fishermen may divide with owls and foxes the ruins of thegreatest European cities--may wash their nets amidst the relics of hergigantic docks, and build their huts out of the capitals of her statelycathedrals? If the principles of Mr Mill be sound, we say, withouthesitation, that the form of government which he recommends willassuredly produce all this. But, if these principles be unsound, ifthe reasonings by which we have opposed them be just, the higher andmiddling orders are the natural representatives of the human race. Their interest may be opposed in some things to that of their poorercontemporaries; but it is identical with that of the innumerablegenerations which are to follow. 

Mr Mill concludes his essay, by answering an objection often made to theproject of universal suffrage--that the people do not understand theirown interests. We shall not go through his arguments on this subject, because, till he has proved that it is for the interest of the peopleto respect property, he only makes matters worse by proving that theyunderstand their interests. But we cannot refrain from treating ourreaders with a delicious bonne bouche of wisdom, which he has kept forthe last moment. 

"The opinions of that class of the people who are below the middle rankare formed, and their minds are directed, by that intelligent, thatvirtuous rank, who come the most immediately in contact with them, whoare in the constant habit of intimate communication with them, to whomthey fly for advice and assistance in all their numerous difficulties, upon whom they feel an immediate and daily dependence in health and insickness, in infancy and in old age, to whom their children look up asmodels for their imitation, whose opinions they hear daily repeated, andaccount it their honour to adopt. There can be no doubt that the middlerank, which gives to science, to art, and to legislation itself theirmost distinguished ornaments, and is the chief source of all that hasexalted and refined human nature, is that portion of the community, ofwhich, if the basis of representation were ever so far extended, theopinion would ultimately decide. Of the people beneath them, a vastmajority would be sure to be guided by their advice and example. "

This single paragraph is sufficient to upset Mr Mill's theory. Willthe people act against their own interest? Or will the middle rankact against its own interest? Or is the interest of the middle rankidentical with the interest of the people? If the people act accordingto the directions of the middle rank, as Mr Mill says that theyassuredly will, one of these three questions must be answered inthe affirmative. But, if any one of the three be answered in theaffirmative, his whole system falls to the ground. If the interest ofthe middle rank be identical with that of the people, why should notthe powers of government be intrusted to that rank? If the powers ofgovernment were intrusted to that rank, there would evidently be anaristocracy of wealth; and "to constitute an aristocracy of wealth, though it were a very numerous one, would, " according to Mr Mill, "leave the community without protection, and exposed to all the evilsof unbridled power. " Will not the same motives which induce the middleclasses to abuse one kind of power induce them to abuse another? Iftheir interest be the same with that of the people they will govern thepeople well. If it be opposite to that of the people they will advisethe people ill. The system of universal suffrage, therefore, accordingto Mr Mill's own account, is only a device for doing circuitously whata representative system, with a pretty high qualification, would dodirectly. 

So ends this celebrated Essay. And such is this philosophy for which theexperience of three thousand years is to be discarded; this philosophy, the professors of which speak as if it had guided the world to theknowledge of navigation and alphabetical writing; as if, before itsdawn, the inhabitants of Europe had lived in caverns and eaten eachother! We are sick, it seems, like the children of Israel, of theobjects of our old and legitimate worship. We pine for a new idolatry. All that is costly and all that is ornamental in our intellectualtreasures must be delivered up, and cast into the furnace--and therecomes out this Calf!

Our readers can scarcely mistake our object in writing this article. They will not suspect us of any disposition to advocate the cause ofabsolute monarchy, or of any narrow form of oligarchy, or to exaggeratethe evils of popular government. Our object at present is, not so muchto attack or defend any particular system of polity, as to expose thevices of a kind of reasoning utterly unfit for moral and politicaldiscussions; of a kind of reasoning which may so readily be turned topurposes of falsehood that it ought to receive no quarter, even when byaccident it may be employed on the side of truth. 

Our objection to the essay of Mr Mill is fundamental. We believe thatit is utterly impossible to deduce the science of government from theprinciples of human nature. 

What proposition is there respecting human nature which is absolutelyand universally true? We know of only one: and that is not only true, but identical; that men always act from self-interest. This truism theUtilitarians proclaim with as much pride as if it were new, and as muchzeal as if it were important. But in fact, when explained, it means onlythat men, if they can, will do as they choose. When we see the actionsof a man we know with certainty what he thinks his interest to be. Butit is impossible to reason with certainty from what WE take to be hisinterest to his actions. One man goes without a dinner that he may adda shilling to a hundred thousand pounds: another runs in debt togive balls and masquerades. One man cuts his father's throat to getpossession of his old clothes: another hazards his own life to save thatof an enemy. One man volunteers on a forlorn hope: another is drummedout of a regiment for cowardice. Each of these men has, no doubt, actedfrom self-interest. But we gain nothing by knowing this, except thepleasure, if it be one, of multiplying useless words. In fact, thisprinciple is just as recondite and just as important as the great truththat whatever is, is. If a philosopher were always to state facts inthe following form--"There is a shower: but whatever is, is; therefore, there is a shower, "--his reasoning would be perfectly sound; but wedo not apprehend that it would materially enlarge the circle of humanknowledge. And it is equally idle to attribute any importance to aproposition, which, when interpreted means only that a man had rather dowhat he had rather do. 

If the doctrine, that men always act from self-interest, be laid down inany other sense than this--if the meaning of the word self-interestbe narrowed so as to exclude any one of the motives which may bypossibility act on any human being, the proposition ceases to beidentical: but at the same time it ceases to be true. 

What we have said of the word "self-interest" applies to all thesynonymes and circumlocutions which are employed to convey the samemeaning; pain and pleasure, happiness and misery, objects of desire, andso forth. 

The whole art of Mr Mill's essay consists in one simple trick oflegerdemain. It consists in using words of the sort which we have beendescribing first in one sense and then in another. Men will take theobjects of their desire if they can. Unquestionably:--but this is anidentical proposition: for an object of desire means merely a thingwhich a man will procure if he can. Nothing can possibly be inferredfrom a maxim of this kind. When we see a man take something we shallknow that it was an object of his desire. But till then we have no meansof judging with certainty what he desires or what he will take. Thegeneral proposition, however, having been admitted, Mr Mill proceeds toreason as if men had no desires but those which can be gratified only byspoliation and oppression. It then becomes easy to deduce doctrines ofvast importance from the original axiom. The only misfortune is, that bythus narrowing the meaning of the word desire the axiom becomes false, and all the doctrines consequent upon it are false likewise. 

When we pass beyond those maxims which it is impossible to deny withouta contradiction in terms, and which, therefore, do not enable us toadvance a single step in practical knowledge, we do not believe thatit is possible to lay down a single general rule respecting the motiveswhich influence human actions. There is nothing which may not, byassociation or by comparison, become an object either of desire orof aversion. The fear of death is generally considered as one of thestrongest of our feelings. It is the most formidable sanction whichlegislators have been able to devise. Yet it is notorious that, as LordBacon has observed, there is no passion by which that fear has not beenoften overcome. Physical pain is indisputably an evil; yet it has beenoften endured and even welcomed. Innumerable martyrs have exulted intorments which made the spectators shudder: and to use a more homelyillustration, there are few wives who do not long to be mothers. 

Is the love of approbation a stronger motive than the love of wealth? Itis impossible to answer this question generally even in the case of anindividual with whom we are very intimate. We often say, indeed, thata man loves fame more than money, or money more than fame. But this issaid in a loose and popular sense; for there is scarcely a man whowould not endure a few sneers for a great sum of money, if he were inpecuniary distress; and scarcely a man, on the other hand, who, if hewere in flourishing circumstances, would expose himself to the hatredand contempt of the public for a trifle. In order, therefore, to returna precise answer even about a single human being, we must know what isthe amount of the sacrifice of reputation demanded and of the pecuniaryadvantage offered, and in what situation the person to whom thetemptation is proposed stands at the time. But, when the question ispropounded generally about the whole species, the impossibility ofanswering is still more evident. Man differs from man; generation fromgeneration; nation from nation. Education, station, sex, age, accidentalassociations, produce infinite shades of variety. 

Now, the only mode in which we can conceive it possible to deduce atheory of government from the principles of human nature is this. We must find out what are the motives which, in a particular form ofgovernment, impel rulers to bad measures, and what are those whichimpel them to good measures. We must then compare the effect of the twoclasses of motives; and according as we find the one or the other toprevail, we must pronounce the form of government in question good orbad. 

Now let it be supposed that, in aristocratical and monarchical states, the desire of wealth and other desires of the same class always tendto produce misgovernment, and that the love of approbation and otherkindred feelings always tend to produce good government. Then, if it beimpossible, as we have shown that it is, to pronounce generally which ofthe two classes of motives is the more influential, it is impossibleto find out, a priori, whether a monarchical or aristocratical form ofgovernment be good or bad. 

Mr Mill has avoided the difficulty of making the comparison, by verycoolly putting all the weights into one of the scales, --by reasoning asif no human being had ever sympathised with the feelings, been gratifiedby the thanks, or been galled by the execrations, of another. 

The case, as we have put it, is decisive against Mr Mill, and yet wehave put it in a manner far too favourable to him. For, in fact, it isimpossible to lay it down as a general rule that the love of wealth in asovereign always produces misgovernment, or the love of approbation goodgovernment. A patient and far-sighted ruler, for example, who isless desirous of raising a great sum immediately than of securing anunencumbered and progressive revenue, will, by taking off restraintsfrom trade and giving perfect security to property, encourageaccumulation and entice capital from foreign countries. The commercialpolicy of Prussia, which is perhaps superior to that of any country inthe world, and which puts to shame the absurdities of our republicanbrethren on the other side of the Atlantic, has probably sprung from thedesire of an absolute ruler to enrich himself. On the other hand, whenthe popular estimate of virtues and vices is erroneous, which is toooften the case, the love of approbation leads sovereigns to spendthe wealth of the nation on useless shows, or to engage in wanton anddestructive wars. If then we can neither compare the strength of twomotives, nor determine with certainty to what description of actionseither motive will lead, how can we possibly deduce a theory ofgovernment from the nature of man?

How, then, are we to arrive at just conclusions on a subject soimportant to the happiness of mankind? Surely by that method which, inevery experimental science to which it has been applied, has signallyincreased the power and knowledge of our species, --by that method forwhich our new philosophers would substitute quibbles scarcely worthyof the barbarous respondents and opponents of the middle ages, --by themethod of Induction;--by observing the present state of the world, --byassiduously studying the history of past ages, --by sifting the evidenceof facts, --by carefully combining and contrasting those whichare authentic, --by generalising with judgment and diffidence, --byperpetually bringing the theory which we have constructed to the testof new facts, --by correcting, or altogether abandoning it, accordingas those new facts prove it to be partially or fundamentally unsound. Proceeding thus, --patiently, --diligently, --candidly, --we may hope toform a system as far inferior in pretension to that which we have beenexamining and as far superior to it in real utility as the prescriptionsof a great physician, varying with every stage of every malady and withthe constitution of every patient, to the pill of the advertising quackwhich is to cure all human beings, in all climates, of all diseases. 

This is that noble Science of Politics, which is equally removed fromthe barren theories of the Utilitarian sophists, and from the pettycraft, so often mistaken for statesmanship by minds grown narrow inhabits of intrigue, jobbing, and official etiquette;--which of allsciences is the most important to the welfare of nations, --which ofall sciences most tends to expand and invigorate the mind, --which drawsnutriment and ornament from every part of philosophy and literature, and dispenses in return nutriment and ornament to all. We are sorry andsurprised when we see men of good intentions and good natural abilitiesabandon this healthful and generous study to pore over speculations likethose which we have been examining. And we should heartily rejoice tofind that our remarks had induced any person of this description toemploy, in researches of real utility, the talents and industry whichare now wasted on verbal sophisms, wretched of their wretched kind. 

As to the greater part of the sect, it is, we apprehend, of littleconsequence what they study or under whom. It would be more amusing, tobe sure, and more reputable, if they would take up the old republicancant and declaim about Brutus and Timoleon, the duty of killing tyrantsand the blessedness of dying for liberty. But, on the whole, theymight have chosen worse. They may as well be Utilitarians as jockeysor dandies. And, though quibbling about self-interest and motives, andobjects of desire, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number, is but a poor employment for a grown man, it certainly hurts the healthless than hard drinking, and the fortune less than high play; it is notmuch more laughable than phrenology, and is immeasurably more humanethan cock-fighting. 

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WESTMINSTER REVIEWER'S DEFENCE OF MILL. (June 1829. )

 "Westminster Review" Number XXI. , Article XVI. "Edinburgh Review" Number XCVII. , Article on Mill's Essays on Government, etc. 

We have had great reason, we think, to be gratified by the success ofour late attack on the Utilitarians. We could publish a long list of thecures which it has wrought in cases previously considered as hopeless. Delicacy forbids us to divulge names; but we cannot refrain fromalluding to two remarkable instances. A respectable lady writes toinform us that her son, who was plucked at Cambridge last January, hasnot been heard to call Sir James Mackintosh a poor ignorant foolmore than twice since the appearance of our article. A distinguishedpolitical writer in the Westminster and Parliamentary Reviews hasborrowed Hume's History, and has actually got as far as the battle ofAgincourt. He assures us that he takes great pleasure in his new study, and that he is very impatient to learn how Scotland and England becameone kingdom. But the greatest compliment that we have received is thatMr Bentham himself should have condescended to take the field in defenceof Mr Mill. We have not been in the habit of reviewing reviews: but, asMr Bentham is a truly great man, and as his party have thought fit toannounce in puffs and placards that this article is written by him, andcontains not only an answer to our attacks, but a development of the"greatest happiness principle, " with the latest improvements of theauthor, we shall for once depart from our general rule. However theconflict may terminate, we shall at least not have been vanquished by anignoble hand. 

Of Mr Bentham himself we shall endeavour, even while defending ourselvesagainst his reproaches, to speak with the respect to which his venerableage, his genius, and his public services entitle him. If any harshexpression should escape us, we trust that he will attribute it toinadvertence, to the momentary warmth of controversy, --to anything, inshort, rather than to a design of affronting him. Though we havenothing in common with the crew of Hurds and Boswells, who, either frominterested motives, or from the habit of intellectual servility anddependence, pamper and vitiate his appetite with the noxious sweetnessof their undiscerning praise, we are not perhaps less competent thanthey to appreciate his merit, or less sincerely disposed to acknowledgeit. Though we may sometimes think his reasonings on moral and politicalquestions feeble and sophistical--though we may sometimes smile at hisextraordinary language--we can never be weary of admiring the amplitudeof his comprehension, the keenness of his penetration, the exuberantfertility with which his mind pours forth arguments and illustrations. However sharply he may speak of us, we can never cease to revere in himthe father of the philosophy of Jurisprudence. He has a full right toall the privileges of a great inventor: and, in our court of criticism, those privileges will never be pleaded in vain. But they are limitedin the same manner in which, fortunately for the ends of justice, theprivileges of the peerage are now limited. The advantage is personal andincommunicable. A nobleman can now no longer cover with his protectionevery lackey who follows his heels, or every bully who draws in hisquarrel: and, highly as we respect the exalted rank which Mr Benthamholds among the writers of our time, yet when, for the due maintenanceof literary police, we shall think it necessary to confute sophists, or to bring pretenders to shame, we shall not depart from the ordinarycourse of our proceedings because the offenders call themselvesBenthamites. 

Whether Mr Mill has much reason to thank Mr Bentham for undertaking hisdefence, our readers, when they have finished this article, will perhapsbe inclined to doubt. Great as Mr Bentham's talents are, he has, wethink, shown an undue confidence in them. He should have considered howdangerous it is for any man, however eloquent and ingenious he maybe, to attack or defend a book without reading it: and we feel quiteconvinced that Mr Bentham would never have written the article beforeus if he had, before he began, perused our review with attention, andcompared it with Mr Mill's Essay. 

He has utterly mistaken our object and meaning. He seems to think thatwe have undertaken to set up some theory of government in opposition tothat of Mr Mill. But we distinctly disclaimed any such design. Fromthe beginning to the end of our article, there is not, as far aswe remember, a single sentence which, when fairly construed, can beconsidered as indicating any such design. If such an expression can befound, it has been dropped by inadvertence. Our object was to prove, notthat monarchy and aristocracy are good, but that Mr Mill had not provedthem to be bad; not that democracy is bad, but that Mr Mill had notproved it to be good. The points in issue are these: whether the famousEssay on Government be, as it has been called, a perfect solution ofthe great political problem, or a series of sophisms and blunders; andwhether the sect which, while it glories in the precision of its logic, extols this Essay as a masterpiece of demonstration be a sect deservingof the respect or of the derision of mankind. These, we say, are theissues; and on these we with full confidence put ourselves on thecountry. 

It is not necessary, for the purposes of this investigation, thatwe should state what our political creed is, or whether we have anypolitical creed at all. A man who cannot act the most trivial part in afarce has a right to hiss Romeo Coates: a man who does not know a veinfrom an artery may caution a simple neighbour against the advertisementsof Dr Eady. A complete theory of government would indeed be a noblepresent to mankind; but it is a present which we do not hope and do notpretend that we can offer. If, however, we cannot lay the foundation, itis something to clear away the rubbish; if we cannot set up truth, itis something to pull down error. Even if the subjects of which theUtilitarians treat were subjects of less fearful importance, we shouldthink it no small service to the cause of good sense and good taste topoint out the contrast between their magnificent pretensions and theirmiserable performances. Some of them have, however, thought fit todisplay their ingenuity on questions of the most momentous kind, and onquestions concerning which men cannot reason ill with impunity. We thinkit, under these circumstances, an absolute duty to expose the fallacy oftheir arguments. It is no matter of pride or of pleasure. To read theirworks is the most soporific employment that we know; and a man ought nomore to be proud of refuting them than of having two legs. We must nowcome to close quarters with Mr Bentham, whom, we need not say, we do notmean to include in this observation. He charges us with maintaining, --

"First, 'That it is not true that all despots govern ill;'--whereon theworld is in a mistake, and the Whigs have the true light. And for proof, principally, --that the King of Denmark is not Caligula. To which theanswer is, that the King of Denmark is not a despot. He was put in hispresent situation by the people turning the scale in his favour in abalanced contest between himself and the nobility. And it is quite clearthat the same power would turn the scale the other way the moment a Kingof Denmark should take into his head to be Caligula. It is of littleconsequence by what congeries of letters the Majesty of Denmark istypified in the royal press of Copenhagen, while the real fact isthat the sword of the people is suspended over his head, in case ofill-behaviour, as effectually as in other countries where more noise ismade upon the subject. Everybody believes the sovereign of Denmark to bea good and virtuous gentleman; but there is no more superhuman merit inhis being so than in the case of a rural squire who does not shoot hisland-steward or quarter his wife with his yeomanry sabre. 

"It is true that there are partial exceptions to the rule, that allmen use power as badly as they dare. There may have been such things asamiable negro-drivers and sentimental masters of press-gangs; and hereand there, among the odd freaks of human nature, there may have beenspecimens of men who were 'No tyrants, though bred up to tyranny. ' Butit would be as wise to recommend wolves for nurses at the Foundling onthe credit of Romulus and Remus as to substitute the exception for thegeneral fact, and advise mankind to take to trusting to arbitrary poweron the credit of these specimens. "

Now, in the first place, we never cited the case of Denmark to provethat all despots do not govern ill. We cited it to prove that Mr Milldid not know how to reason. Mr Mill gave it as a reason for deducing thetheory of government from the general laws of human nature that the Kingof Denmark was not Caligula. This we said, and we still say, was absurd. 

In the second place, it was not we, but Mr Mill, who said that the Kingof Denmark was a despot. His words are these:--"The people of Denmark, tired out with the oppression of an aristocracy, resolved that theirking should be absolute; and under their absolute monarch are as wellgoverned as any people in Europe. " We leave Mr Bentham to settle with MrMill the distinction between a despot and an absolute king. 

In the third place, Mr Bentham says that there was in Denmark a balancedcontest between the king and the nobility. We find some difficulty inbelieving that Mr Bentham seriously means to say this, when we considerthat Mr Mill has demonstrated the chance to be as infinity to oneagainst the existence of such a balanced contest. 

Fourthly, Mr Bentham says that in this balanced contest the peopleturned the scale in favour of the king against the aristocracy. But MrMill has demonstrated that it cannot possibly be for the interest ofthe monarchy and democracy to join against the aristocracy; and thatwherever the three parties exist, the king and the aristocracy willcombine against the people. This, Mr Mill assures us, is as certain asanything which depends upon human will. 

Fifthly, Mr Bentham says that, if the King of Denmark were to oppresshis people, the people and nobles would combine against the king. But MrMill has proved that it can never be for the interest of the aristocracyto combine with the democracy against the king. It is evidently MrBentham's opinion, that "monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy maybalance each other, and by mutual checks produce good government. " Butthis is the very theory which Mr Mill pronounces to be the wildest, the most visionary, the most chimerical ever broached on the subject ofgovernment. 

We have no dispute on these heads with Mr Bentham. On the contrary, wethink his explanation true--or at least, true in part; and we heartilythank him for lending us his assistance to demolish the essay of hisfollower. His wit and his sarcasm are sport to us; but they are death tohis unhappy disciple. 

Mr Bentham seems to imagine that we have said something implying anopinion favourable to despotism. We can scarcely suppose that, as he hasnot condescended to read that portion of our work which he undertook toanswer, he can have bestowed much attention on its general character. Had he done so he would, we think, scarcely have entertained sucha suspicion. Mr Mill asserts, and pretends to prove, that under nodespotic government does any human being, except the tools of thesovereign, possess more than the necessaries of life, and that the mostintense degree of terror is kept up by constant cruelty. This, we say, is untrue. It is not merely a rule to which there are exceptions: but itis not the rule. Despotism is bad; but it is scarcely anywhere so badas Mr Mill says that it is everywhere. This we are sure Mr Bentham willallow. If a man were to say that five hundred thousand people die everyyear in London of dram-drinking, he would not assert a proposition moremonstrously false than Mr Mill's. Would it be just to charge us withdefending intoxication because we might say that such a man was grosslyin the wrong?

We say with Mr Bentham that despotism is a bad thing. We say with MrBentham that the exceptions do not destroy the authority of the rule. But this we say--that a single exception overthrows an argument whicheither does not prove the rule at all, or else proves the rule to beTRUE WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS; and such an argument is Mr Mill's argumentagainst despotism. In this respect there is a great difference betweenrules drawn from experience and rules deduced a priori. We might believethat there had been a fall of snow last August, and yet not think itlikely that there would be snow next August. A single occurrence opposedto our general experience would tell for very little in our calculationof the chances. But, if we could once satisfy ourselves that in ANYsingle right-angled triangle the square of the hypothenuse might beless than the squares of the sides, we must reject the forty-seventhproposition of Euclid altogether. We willingly adopt Mr Bentham's livelyillustration about the wolf; and we will say in passing that it givesus real pleasure to see how little old age has diminished the gaiety ofthis eminent man. We can assure him that his merriment gives us far morepleasure on his account than pain on our own. We say with him, Keep thewolf out of the nursery, in spite of the story of Romulus and Remus. But, if the shepherd who saw the wolf licking and suckling those famoustwins were, after telling this story to his companions, to assert thatit was an infallible rule that no wolf ever had spared, or ever wouldspare, any living thing which might fall in its way--that its nature wascarnivorous--and that it could not possibly disobey its nature, we thinkthat the hearers might have been excused for staring. It may be strange, but is not inconsistent, that a wolf which has eaten ninety-ninechildren should spare the hundredth. But the fact that a wolf has oncespared a child is sufficient to show that there must be some flaw in thechain of reasoning purporting to prove that wolves cannot possibly sparechildren. 

Mr Bentham proceeds to attack another position which he conceives us tomaintain:--

"Secondly, That a government not under the control of the community (forthere is no question upon any other) 'MAY SOON BE SATURATED. ' Tell itnot in Bow Street, whisper it not in Hatton Garden, --that there isa plan for preventing injustice by 'saturation. ' With what peals ofunearthly merriment would Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus be arousedupon their benches, if the 'light wings of saffron and of blue' shouldbear this theory into their grim domains! Why do not the owners ofpocket-handkerchiefs try to 'saturate?' Why does not the cheatedpublican beg leave to check the gulosity of his defrauder with arepetatur haustus, and the pummelled plaintiff neutralise the malice ofhis adversary, by requesting to have the rest of the beating in presenceof the court, --if it is not that such conduct would run counter to allthe conclusions of experience, and be the procreation of the mischief itaffected to destroy? Woful is the man whose wealth depends on his havingmore than somebody else can be persuaded to take from him; and wofulalso is the people that is in such a case!"

Now this is certainly very pleasant writing: but there is no greatdifficulty in answering the argument. The real reason which makes itabsurd to think of preventing theft by pensioning off thieves is this, that there is no limit to the number of thieves. If there were only ahundred thieves in a place, and we were quite sure that no person notalready addicted to theft would take to it, it might become a questionwhether to keep the thieves from dishonesty by raising them abovedistress would not be a better course than to employ officers againstthem. But the actual cases are not parallel. Every man who choosescan become a thief; but a man cannot become a king or a member ofthe aristocracy whenever he chooses. The number of the depredators islimited; and therefore the amount of depredation, so far as physicalpleasures are concerned, must be limited also. Now, we made the remarkwhich Mr Bentham censures with reference to physical pleasures only. Thepleasures of ostentation, of taste, of revenge, and other pleasures ofthe same description, have, we distinctly allowed, no limit. Our wordsare these:--"a king or an aristocracy may be supplied to satiety withCORPORAL PLEASURES, at an expense which the rudest and poorest communitywould scarcely feel. " Does Mr Bentham deny this? If he does, weleave him to Mr Mill. "What, " says that philosopher, in his Essay onEducation, "what are the ordinary pursuits of wealth and power, whichkindle to such a height the ardour of mankind? Not the mere love ofeating and of drinking, or all the physical objects together whichwealth can purchase or power command. With these every man is in thelong run speedily satisfied. " What the difference is between beingspeedily satisfied and being soon saturated, we leave Mr Bentham and MrMill to settle together. 

The word "saturation, " however, seems to provoke Mr Bentham's mirth. Itcertainly did not strike us as very pure English; but, as Mr Mill usedit, we supposed it to be good Benthamese. With the latter language weare not critically acquainted, though, as it has many roots in commonwith our mother tongue, we can contrive, by the help of a convertedUtilitarian, who attends us in the capacity of Moonshee, to make out alittle. But Mr Bentham's authority is of course decisive; and we bow toit. 

Mr Bentham next represents us as maintaining:--

"Thirdly, That 'though there may be some tastes and propensities thathave no point of saturation, there exists a sufficient check in thedesire of the good opinion of others. ' The misfortune of this argumentis, that no man cares for the good opinion of those he has beenaccustomed to wrong, If oysters have opinions, it is probable they thinkvery ill of those who eat them in August; but small is the effect uponthe autumnal glutton that engulfs their gentle substances within hisown. The planter and the slave-driver care just as much about negroopinion, as the epicure about the sentiments of oysters. M. Ude throwinglive eels into the fire as a kindly method of divesting them of theunsavoury oil that lodges beneath their skins, is not more convinced ofthe immense aggregate of good which arises to the lordlier parts of thecreation, than is the gentle peer who strips his fellow man of countryand of family for a wild-fowl slain. The goodly landowner, who lives bymorsels squeezed indiscriminately from the waxy hands of the cobbler andthe polluted ones of the nightman, is in no small degree the object ofboth hatred and contempt; but it is to be feared that he is a long wayfrom feeling them to be intolerable. The principle of 'At mihi plaudoipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca, ' is sufficient to makea wide interval between the opinions of the plaintiff and defendant insuch cases. In short, to banish law and leave all plaintiffs to trustto the desire of reputation on the opposite side, would only betransporting the theory of the Whigs from the House of Commons toWestminster Hall. "

Now, in the first place, we never maintained the proposition which MrBentham puts into our mouths. We said, and say, that there is a CERTAINcheck to the rapacity and cruelty of men, in their desire of the goodopinion of others. We never said that it was sufficient. Let Mr Millshow it to be insufficient. It is enough for us to prove that there isa set-off against the principle from which Mr Mill deduces the wholetheory of government. The balance may be, and, we believe, will be, against despotism and the narrower forms of aristocracy. But what isthis to the correctness or incorrectness of Mr Mill's accounts? Thequestion is not, whether the motives which lead rulers to behave illare stronger than those which lead them to behave well;--but, whetherwe ought to form a theory of government by looking ONLY at the motiveswhich lead rulers to behave ill and never noticing those which lead themto behave well. 

Absolute rulers, says Mr Bentham, do not care for the good opinion oftheir subjects; for no man cares for the good opinion of those whom hehas been accustomed to wrong. By Mr Bentham's leave, this is a plainbegging of the question. The point at issue is this:--Will kings andnobles wrong the people? The argument in favour of kings and nobles isthis:--they will not wrong the people, because they care for the goodopinion of the people. But this argument Mr Bentham meets thus:--theywill not care for the good opinion of the people, because they areaccustomed to wrong the people. 

Here Mr Mill differs, as usual, from Mr Bentham. "The greatest princes, "says he, in his Essay on Education, "the most despotical masters ofhuman destiny, when asked what they aim at by their wars and conquests, would answer, if sincere, as Frederick of Prussia answered, pour faireparler de soi;--to occupy a large space in the admiration of mankind. "Putting Mr Mill's and Mr Bentham's principles together, we might makeout very easily that "the greatest princes, the most despotical mastersof human destiny, " would never abuse their power. 

A man who has been long accustomed to injure people must also have beenlong accustomed to do without their love, and to endure their aversion. Such a man may not miss the pleasure of popularity; for men seldom missa pleasure which they have long denied themselves. An old tyrant doeswithout popularity just as an old water-drinker does without wine. But, though it is perfectly true that men who for the good of their healthhave long abstained from wine feel the want of it very little, it wouldbe absurd to infer that men will always abstain from wine when theirhealth requires that they should do so. And it would be equally absurdto say, because men who have been accustomed to oppress care little forpopularity, that men will therefore necessarily prefer the pleasure ofoppression to those of popularity. 

Then, again, a man may be accustomed to wrong people in one point andnot in another. He may care for their good opinion with regard to onepoint and not with regard to another. The Regent Orleans laughed atcharges of impiety, libertinism, extravagance, idleness, disgracefulpromotions. But the slightest allusion to the charge of poisoning threwhim into convulsions. Louis the Fifteenth braved the hatred and contemptof his subjects during many years of the most odious and imbecilemisgovernment. But, when a report was spread that he used human bloodfor his baths, he was almost driven mad by it. Surely Mr Bentham'sposition "that no man cares for the good opinion of those whom he hasbeen accustomed to wrong" would be objectionable, as far too sweepingand indiscriminate, even if it did not involve, as in the present casewe have shown that it does, a direct begging of the question at issue. 

Mr Bentham proceeds:--

"Fourthly, The Edinburgh Reviewers are of opinion, that 'it might, withno small plausibility, be maintained, that in many countries, there aretwo classes which, in some degree, answer to this description;' [viz. ]'that the poor compose the class which government is established torestrain; and the people of some property the class to which the powersof government may without danger be confided. '

"They take great pains, it is true, to say this and not to say it. Theyshuffle and creep about, to secure a hole to escape at, if 'what theydo not assert' should be found in any degree inconvenient. A manmight waste his life in trying to find out whether the Misses of the'Edinburgh' mean to say Yes or No in their political coquetry. Butwhichever way the lovely spinsters may decide, it is diametricallyopposed to history and the evidence of facts, that the poor ARE theclass whom there is any difficulty in restraining. It is not the poorbut the rich that have a propensity to take the property of otherpeople. There is no instance upon earth of the poor having combined totake away the property of the rich; and all the instances habituallybrought forward in support of it are gross misrepresentations, foundedupon the most necessary acts of self-defence on the part of the mostnumerous classes. Such a misrepresentation is the common one of theAgrarian law; which was nothing but an attempt on the part of theRoman people to get back some part of what had been taken from them byundisguised robbery. Such another is the stock example of the FrenchRevolution, appealed to by the 'Edinburgh Review' in the actual case. It is utterly untrue that the French Revolution took place because 'thepoor began to compare their cottages and salads with the hotels andbanquets of the rich;' it took place because they were robbed oftheir cottages and salads to support the hotels and banquets of theiroppressors. It is utterly untrue that there was either a scramble forproperty or a general confiscation; the classes who took part with theforeign invaders lost their property, as they would have done here, andought to do everywhere. All these are the vulgar errors of the man onthe lion's back, --which the lion will set to rights when he can tell hisown story. History is nothing but the relation of the sufferings of thepoor from the rich; except precisely so far as the numerous classes ofthe community have contrived to keep the virtual power in their hands, or, in other words, to establish free governments. If a poor man injuresthe rich, the law is instantly at his heels; the injuries of the richtowards the poor are always inflicted BY the law. And to enable the richto do this to any extent that may be practicable or prudent, there isclearly one postulate required, which is, that the rich shall make thelaw. "

This passage is alone sufficient to prove that Mr Bentham has not takenthe trouble to read our article from beginning to end. We are quite surethat he would not stoop to misrepresent it. And, if he had read it withany attention, he would have perceived that all this coquetry, thishesitation, this Yes and No, this saying and not saying, is simply anexercise of the undeniable right which in controversy belongs to thedefensive side--to the side which proposes to establish nothing. Theaffirmative of the issue and the burden of the proof are with Mr Mill, not with us. We are not bound, perhaps we are not able, to show that theform of government which he recommends is bad. It is quite enough if wecan show that he does not prove it to be good. In his proof, among manyother flaws, is this--He says, that if men are not inclined to plundereach other, government is unnecessary, and that, if men are so inclined, kings and aristocracies will plunder the people. Now, this we say, is afallacy. That SOME men will plunder their neighbours if they can, isa sufficient reason for the existence of governments. But it is notdemonstrated that kings and aristocracies will plunder the people, unless it be true that ALL men will plunder their neighbours, if theycan. Men are placed in very different situations. Some have all thebodily pleasures that they desire, and many other pleasures besides, without plundering anybody. Others can scarcely obtain their daily breadwithout plundering. It may be true, but surely it is not self-evident, that the former class is under as strong temptations to plunder as thelatter. Mr Mill was therefore bound to prove it. That he has not provedit is one of thirty or forty fatal errors in his argument. It is notnecessary that we should express an opinion or even have an opinion onthe subject. Perhaps we are in a state of perfect scepticism: but whatthen? Are we the theorymakers? When we bring before the world a theoryof government, it will be time to call upon us to offer proof at everystep. At present we stand on our undoubted logical right. We concedenothing; and we deny nothing. We say to the Utilitarian theorists:--Whenyou prove your doctrine, we will believe it; and, till you prove it, wewill not believe it. 

Mr Bentham has quite misunderstood what we said about the FrenchRevolution. We never alluded to that event for the purpose of provingthat the poor were inclined to rob the rich. Mr Mill's principles ofhuman nature furnished us with that part of our argument ready-made. We alluded to the French Revolution for the purpose of illustratingthe effects which general spoliation produces on society, not for thepurpose of showing that general spoliation will take place under ademocracy. We allowed distinctly that, in the peculiar circumstances ofthe French monarchy, the Revolution, though accompanied by a great shockto the institution of property, was a blessing. Surely Mr Bentham willnot maintain that the injury produced by the deluge of assignats andby the maximum fell only on the emigrants, --or that there were not manyemigrants who would have stayed and lived peaceably under any governmentif their persons and property had been secure. 

We never said that the French Revolution took place because the poorbegan to compare their cottages and salads with the hotels and banquetsof the rich. We were not speaking about THE CAUSES of the Revolution, or thinking about them. This we said, and say, that, if a democraticgovernment had been established in France, the poor, when they began tocompare their cottages and salads with the hotels and banquets of therich, would, on the supposition that Mr Mill's principles are sound, have plundered the rich, and repeated without provocation all theseverities and confiscations which at the time of the Revolution, werecommitted with provocation. We say that Mr Mill's favourite form ofgovernment would, if his own views of human nature be just, make thoseviolent convulsions and transfers of property which now rarely happen, except, as in the case of the French Revolution, when the people aremaddened by oppression, events of annual or biennial occurrence. We gaveno opinion of our own. We give none now. We say that this propositionmay be proved from Mr Mill's own premises, by steps strictly analogousto those by which he proves monarchy and aristocracy to be bad forms ofgovernment. To say this, is not to say that the proposition is true. For we hold both Mr Mill's premises and his deduction to be unsoundthroughout. 

Mr Bentham challenges us to prove from history that the people willplunder the rich. What does history say to Mr Mill's doctrine, thatabsolute kings will always plunder their subjects so unmercifully as toleave nothing but a bare subsistence to any except their own creatures?If experience is to be the test, Mr Mill's theory is unsound. If MrMill's reasoning a priori be sound, the people in a democracy willplunder the rich. Let us use one weight and one measure. Let us notthrow history aside when we are proving a theory, and take it up againwhen we have to refute an objection founded on the principles of thattheory. 

We have not done, however, with Mr Bentham's charges against us. 

"Among other specimens of their ingenuity, they think they embarrass thesubject by asking why, on the principles in question, women should nothave votes as well as men. AND WHY NOT?

 'Gentle shepherd, tell me why?'--

If the mode of election was what it ought to be, there would be no moredifficulty in women voting for a representative in Parliament than fora director at the India House. The world will find out at some timethat the readiest way to secure justice on some points is to be just onall:--that the whole is easier to accomplish than the part; and that, whenever the camel is driven through the eye of the needle, it would besimple folly and debility that would leave a hoof behind. "

Why, says or sings Mr Bentham, should not women vote? It may seemuncivil in us to turn a deaf ear to his Arcadian warblings. But wesubmit, with great deference, that it is not OUR business to tell himwhy. We fully agree with him that the principle of female suffrage isnot so palpably absurd that a chain of reasoning ought to be pronouncedunsound merely because it leads to female suffrage. We say that everyargument which tells in favour of the universal suffrage of the malestells equally in favour of female suffrage. Mr Mill, however, wishesto see all men vote, but says that it is unnecessary that women shouldvote; and for making this distinction HE gives as a reason an assertionwhich, in the first place, is not true, and which, in the next place, would, if true, overset his whole theory of human nature; namely, thatthe interest of the women is identical with that of the men. We sidewith Mr Bentham, so far, at least, as this: that, when we join to drivethe camel through the needle, he shall go through hoof and all. We atpresent desire to be excused from driving the camel. It is Mr Mill wholeaves the hoof behind. But we should think it uncourteous to reproachhim in the language which Mr Bentham, in the exercise of his paternalauthority over the sect, thinks himself entitled to employ. 

"Another of their perverted ingenuities is, that 'they are ratherinclined to think, ' that it would, on the whole, be for the interest ofthe majority to plunder the rich; and if so, the Utilitarians will saythat the rich OUGHT to be plundered. On which it is sufficient to reply, that for the majority to plunder the rich would amount to a declarationthat nobody should be rich; which, as all men wish to be rich, wouldinvolve a suicide of hope. And as nobody has shown a fragment of reasonwhy such a proceeding should be for the general happiness, it doesnot follow that the 'Utilitarians' would recommend it. The EdinburghReviewers have a waiting gentlewoman's ideas of 'Utilitarianism. ' Itis unsupported by anything but the pitiable 'We are rather inclined tothink'--and is utterly contradicted by the whole course of history andhuman experience besides, --that there is either danger or possibility ofsuch a consummation as the majority agreeing on the plunder of the rich. There have been instances in human memory, of their agreeing to plunderrich oppressors, rich traitors, rich enemies, --but the rich simpliciternever. It is as true now as in the days of Harrington that 'a peoplenever will, nor ever can, never did, nor ever shall, take up arms forlevelling. ' All the commotions in the world have been for somethingelse; and 'levelling' is brought forward as the blind to conceal whatthe other was. "

We say, again and again, that we are on the defensive. We do not thinkit necessary to prove that a quack medicine is poison. Let the vendorprove it to be sanative. We do not pretend to show that universalsuffrage is an evil. Let its advocates show it to be a good. Mr Milltells us that, if power be given for short terms to representativeselected by all the males of mature age, it will then be for the interestof those representatives to promote the greatest happiness of thegreatest number. To prove this, it is necessary that he should provethree propositions: first, that the interest of such a representativebody will be identical with the interest of the constituent body;secondly, that the interest of the constituent body will be identicalwith that of the community; thirdly, that the interest of one generationof a community is identical with that of all succeeding generations. Thetwo first propositions Mr Mill attempts to prove and fails. The last hedoes not even attempt to prove. We therefore refuse our assent to hisconclusions. Is this unreasonable?

We never even dreamed, what Mr Bentham conceives us to have maintained, that it could be for the greatest happiness of MANKIND to plunder therich. But we are "rather inclined to think, " though doubtingly and witha disposition to yield to conviction, that it may be for the pecuniaryinterest of the majority of a single generation in a thickly-peopledcountry to plunder the rich. Why we are inclined to think so we willexplain, whenever we send a theory of government to an Encyclopaedia. At present we are bound to say only that we think so, and shall think sotill somebody shows us a reason for thinking otherwise. 

Mr Bentham's answer to us is simple assertion. He must not think thatwe mean any discourtesy by meeting it with a simple denial. The fact is, that almost all the governments that have ever existed in the civilisedworld have been, in part at least, monarchical and aristocratical. Thefirst government constituted on principles approaching to those whichthe Utilitarians hold was, we think, that of the United States. That thepoor have never combined to plunder the rich in the governments of theold world, no more proves that they might not combine to plunder therich under a system of universal suffrage, than the fact that theEnglish kings of the House of Brunswick have not been Neros andDomitians proves that sovereigns may safely be intrusted with absolutepower. Of what the people would do in a state of perfect sovereignty wecan judge only by indications, which, though rarely of much moment inthemselves, and though always suppressed with little difficulty, are yetof great significance, and resemble those by which our domestic animalssometimes remind us that they are of kin with the fiercest monsters ofthe forest. It would not be wise to reason from the behaviour of a dogcrouching under the lash, which is the case of the Italian people, or from the behaviour of a dog pampered with the best morsels of aplentiful kitchen, which is the case of the purpose of America, to thebehaviour of a wolf, which is nothing but a dog run wild, after a week'sfast among the snows of the Pyrenees. No commotion, says Mr Bentham, was ever really produced by the wish of levelling; the wish has been putforward as a blind; but something else has been the real object. Grantall this. But why has levelling been put forward as a blind in timesof commotion to conceal the real objects of the agitators? Is it withdeclarations which involve "a suicide of hope" that man attempt toallure others? Was famine, pestilence, slavery, ever held out to attractthe people? If levelling has been made a pretence for disturbances, theargument against Mr Bentham's doctrine is as strong as if it had beenthe real object of disturbances. 

But the great objection which Mr Bentham makes to our review, stillremains to be noticed:--

"The pith of the charge against the author of the Essays is, that he haswritten 'an elaborate Treatise on Government, ' and 'deduced the wholescience from the assumption of certain propensities of human nature. 'Now, in the name of Sir Richard Birnie and all saints, from what elseSHOULD it be deduced? What did ever anybody imagine to be the end, object, and design of government AS IT OUGHT TO BE but the sameoperation, on an extended scale, which that meritorious chief magistrateconducts on a limited one at Bow Street; to wit, the preventing one manfrom injuring another? Imagine, then, that the Whiggery of Bow Streetwere to rise up against the proposition that their science was to bededuced from 'certain propensities of human nature, ' and thereon were toratiocinate as follows:--

"'How then are we to arrive at just conclusions on a subject soimportant to the happiness of mankind? Surely by that method, which, inevery experimental science to which it has been applied, has signallyincreased the power and knowledge of our species, --by that method forwhich our new philosophers would substitute quibbles scarcely worthyof the barbarous respondents and opponents of the middle ages, --by themethod of induction, --by observing the present state of the world, --byassiduously studying the history of past ages, --by sifting the evidenceof facts, --by carefully combining and contrasting those whichare authentic, --by generalising with judgment and diffidence, --byperpetually bringing the theory which we have constructed to the testof new facts, --by correcting, or altogether abandoning it, accordingas those new facts prove it to be partially or fundamentally unsound. Proceeding thus, --patiently, diligently, candidly, we may hope to forma system as far inferior in pretension to that which we havebeen examining, and as far superior to it in real utility, as theprescriptions of a great physician, varying with every stage of everymalady, and with the constitution of every patient, to the pill of theadvertising quack, which is to cure all human beings, in all climates, of all diseases. '

"Fancy now, --only fancy, --the delivery of these wise words at BowStreet; and think how speedily the practical catchpolls would reply, that all this might be very fine, but, as far as they had studiedhistory, the naked story was, after all, that numbers of men had apropensity to thieving, and their business was to catch them; that they, too, had been sifters of facts; and, to say the truth, their simpleopinion was, that their brethren of the red waistcoat--though theyshould be sorry to think ill of any man--had somehow contracted aleaning to the other side, and were more bent on puzzling the case forthe benefit of the defendants, than on doing the duty of good officersand true. Such would, beyond all doubt, be the sentence passed on suchtrimmers in the microcosm of Bow Street. It might not absolutely followthat they were in a plot to rob the goldsmiths' shops, or to set fireto the House of Commons; but it would be quite clear that they had gotA FEELING, --that they were in process of siding with the thieves, --andthat it was not to them that any man must look who was anxious thatpantries should be safe. "

This is all very witty; but it does not touch us. On the presentoccasion, we cannot but flatter ourselves that we bear a much greaterresemblance to a practical catchpoll than either Mr Mill or Mr Bentham. It would, to be sure, be very absurd in a magistrate discussing thearrangements of a police-office, to spout in the style either of ourarticle or Mr Bentham's; but, in substance, he would proceed, if he werea man of sense, exactly as WE recommend. He would, on being appointedto provide for the security of property in a town, study attentivelythe state of the town. He would learn at what places, at what times, andunder what circumstances, theft and outrage were most frequent. Arethe streets, he would ask, most infested with thieves at sunset or atmidnight? Are there any public places of resort which give peculiarfacilities to pickpockets? Are there any districts completely inhabitedby a lawless population? Which are the flash houses, and which the shopsof receivers? Having made himself master of the facts, he would actaccordingly. A strong detachment of officers might be necessary forPetticoat Lane; another for the pit entrance of Covent Garden Theatre. Grosvenor Square and Hamilton Place would require little or noprotection. Exactly thus should we reason about government. Lombardyis oppressed by tyrants; and constitutional checks, such as may producesecurity to the people, are required. It is, so to speak, one of theresorts of thieves; and there is great need of police-officers. Denmarkresembles one of those respectable streets in which it is scarcelynecessary to station a catchpoll, because the inhabitants would at oncejoin to seize a thief. Yet, even in such a street, we should wish tosee an officer appear now and then, as his occasional superintence wouldrender the security more complete. And even Denmark, we think, would bebetter off under a constitutional form of government. 

Mr Mill proceeds like a director of police, who, without asking asingle question about the state of his district, should give his ordersthus:--"My maxim is, that every man will take what he can. Every man inLondon would be a thief, but for the thieftakers. This is an undeniableprinciple of human nature. Some of my predecessors have wastedtheir time in enquiring about particular pawnbrokers, and particularalehouses. Experience is altogether divided. Of people placed in exactlythe same situation, I see that one steals, and that another would soonerburn his hand off. THEREFORE I trust to the laws of human nature alone, and pronounce all men thieves alike. Let everybody, high and low, bewatched. Let Townsend take particular care that the Duke of Wellingtondoes not steal the silk handkerchief of the lord in waiting at thelevee. A person has lost a watch. Go to Lord Fitzwilliam and searchhim for it; he is as great a receiver of stolen goods as Ikey Solomonshimself. Don't tell me about his rank, and character, and fortune. Heis a man; and a man does not change his nature when he is called a lord. ("If Government is founded upon this, as a law of human nature, thata man, if able, will take from others anything which they have and hedesires, it is sufficiently evident that when a man is called a king, hedoes not change his nature, so that, when he has power to take what hepleases, he will take what he pleases. To suppose that he will not, is to affirm that government is unnecessary and that human beingswill abstain from injuring one another of their own accord. "--"Mill onGovernment". ) Either men will steal or they will not steal. If they willnot, why do I sit here? If they will, his lordship must be a thief. " TheWhiggery of Bow Street would perhaps rise up against this wisdom. WouldMr Bentham think that the Whiggery of Bow Street was in the wrong?

We blamed Mr Mill for deducing his theory of government from theprinciples of human nature. "In the name of Sir Richard Birnie and allsaints, " cries Mr Bentham, "from what else should it be deduced?"In spite of this solemn adjuration, with shall venture to answer MrBentham's question by another. How does he arrive at those principles ofhuman nature from which he proposes to deduce the science of government?We think that we may venture to put an answer into his mouth; for intruth there is but one possible answer. He will say--By experience. But what is the extent of this experience? Is it an experience whichincludes experience of the conduct of men intrusted with the powersof government; or is it exclusive of that experience? If it includesexperience of the manner in which men act when intrusted with the powersof government, then those principles of human nature from which thescience of government is to be deduced can only be known after goingthrough that inductive process by which we propose to arrive at thescience of government. Our knowledge of human nature, instead of beingprior in order to our knowledge of the science of government, will beposterior to it. And it would be correct to say, that by means of thescience of government, and of other kindred sciences--the science ofeducation, for example, which falls under exactly the same principle--wearrive at the science of human nature. 

If, on the other hand, we are to deduce the theory of government fromprinciples of human nature, in arriving at which principles we have nottaken into the account the manner in which men act when invested withthe powers of government, then those principles must be defective. They have not been formed by a sufficiently copious induction. We arereasoning, from what a man does in one situation, to what he will do inanother. Sometimes we may be quite justified in reasoning thus. When wehave no means of acquiring information about the particular case beforeus, we are compelled to resort to cases which bear some resemblance toit. But the more satisfactory course is to obtain information aboutthe particular case; and, whenever this can be obtained, it ought to beobtained. When first the yellow fever broke out, a physician mightbe justified in treating it as he had been accustomed to treat thosecomplaints which, on the whole, had the most symptoms in common with it. But what should we think of a physician who should now tell us thathe deduced his treatment of yellow fever from the general theory ofpathology? Surely we should ask him, Whether, in constructing his theoryof pathology, he had or had not taken into the account the facts whichhad been ascertained respecting the yellow fever? If he had, then itwould be more correct to say that he had arrived at the principles ofpathology partly by his experience of cases of yellow fever than thathe had deduced his treatment of yellow fever from the principles ofpathology. If he had not, he should not prescribe for us. If we had theyellow fever, we should prefer a man who had never treated any cases butcases of yellow fever to a man who had walked the hospitals of Londonand Paris for years, but who knew nothing of our particular disease. 

Let Lord Bacon speak for us: "Inductionem censemus eam esse demonstrandiformam, quae sensum tuetur, et naturam premit, et operibus imminet, acfere immiscetur. Itaque ordo quoque demonstrandi plane invertitur. Adhucenim res ita geri consuevit, ut a sensu et particularibus primo locoad maxime generalia advoletur, tanquam ad polos fixos, circa quosdisputationes vertantur; ab illis caetera, per media, deriventur;via certe compendiaria, sed praecipiti, et ad naturam impervia, addisputationes proclivi et accommodata. At, secundum nos, axiomatacontinenter et gradatim excitantur, ut non, nisi postremo loco, admaxime generalia veniatur. " Can any words more exactly describe thepolitical reasonings of Mr Mill than those in which Lord Bacon thusdescribes the logomachies of the schoolmen? Mr Mill springs at once to ageneral principle of the widest extent, and from that general principlededuces syllogistically every thing which is included in it. We say withBacon--"non, nisi postremo loco, ad maxime generalia veniatur. " In thepresent inquiry, the science of human nature is the "maxime generale. "To this the Utilitarian rushes at once, and from this he deduces ahundred sciences. But the true philosopher, the inductive reasoner, travels up to it slowly, through those hundred sciences, of which thescience of government is one. 

As we have lying before us that incomparable volume, the noblest andmost useful of all the works of the human reason, the Novum Organum, we will transcribe a few lines, in which the Utilitarian philosophy isportrayed to the life. 

"Syllogismus ad 'Principia' scientiarum non adhibetur, ad media axiomatafrustra adhibetur, cum sit subtilitati naturae longe impar. Assensumitaque constringit, non res. Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones ex verbis, verba notionum tesserae sunt. Itaque sinotiones ipsae, id quod basis rei est, confusae sint, et tenere a rebusabstractae, nihil in iis quae superstruuntur est firmitudinis. Itaquespes est una in Inductione vera. In notionibus nil sani est, nec inLogicis nec in physicis. Non substantia, non qualitas, agere, pati, ipsum esse, bonae notiones sunt; multo minus grave, leve, densum, tenue, humidum, siccum, generatio, corruptio, attrahere, fugare, elementum, materia, forma, et id genus, sed omnes phantasticae et male terminatae. "

Substitute for the "substantia, " the "generatio, " the "corruptio, "the "elementum, " the "materia, " of the old schoolmen, Mr Mill's pain, pleasure, interest, power, objects of desire, --and the words of Baconwill seem to suit the current year as well as the beginning of theseventeenth century. 

We have now gone through the objections that Mr Bentham makes to ourarticle: and we submit ourselves on all the charges to the judgment ofthe public. 

The rest of Mr Bentham's article consists of an exposition of theUtilitarian principle, or, as he decrees that it shall be called, the"greatest happiness principle. " He seems to think that we have beenassailing it. We never said a syllable against it. We spoke slightinglyof the Utilitarian sect, as we thought of them, and think of them; butit was not for holding this doctrine that we blamed them. In attackingthem we no more meant to attack the "greatest happiness principle" thanwhen we say that Mahometanism is a false religion we mean to deny theunity of God, which is the first article of the Mahometan creed;--nomore than Mr Bentham, when he sneers at the Whigs means to blame themfor denying the divine right of kings. We reasoned throughout ourarticle on the supposition that the end of government was to produce thegreatest happiness to mankind. 

Mr Bentham gives an account of the manner in which he arrived at thediscovery of the "greatest happiness principle. " He then proceeds todescribe the effects which, as he conceives, that discovery is producingin language so rhetorical and ardent that, if it had been written by anyother person, a genuine Utilitarian would certainly have thrown down thebook in disgust. 

"The only rivals of any note to the new principle which were broughtforward, were those known by the names of the 'moral sense, ' and the'original contract. ' The new principle superseded the first of these, bypresenting it with a guide for its decisions; and the other, by makingit unnecessary to resort to a remote and imaginary contract for what wasclearly the business of every man and every hour. Throughout the wholehorizon of morals and of politics, the consequences were glorious andvast. It might be said without danger of exaggeration, that they whosat in darkness had seen a great light. The mists in which mankindhad jousted against each other were swept away, as when the sun ofastronomical science arose in the full development of the principle ofgravitation. If the object of legislation was the greatest happiness, MORALITY was the promotion of the same end by the conduct of theindividual; and by analogy, the happiness of the world was the moralityof nations. 

". .. All the sublime obscurities, which had haunted the mind of man fromthe first formation of society, --the phantoms whose steps had been onearth, and their heads among the clouds--marshalled themselves at thesound of this new principle of connection and of union, and stood aregulated band, where all was order, symmetry, and force. What men hadstruggled for and bled, while they saw it but as through a glass darkly, was made the object of substantial knowledge and lively apprehension. The bones of sages and of patriots stirred within their tombs, that whatthey dimly saw and followed had become the world's common heritage. Andthe great result was wrought by no supernatural means, nor producedby any unparallelable concatenation of events. It was foretold by nooracles, and ushered by no portents; but was brought about by the quietand reiterated exercise of God's first gift of common sense. "

Mr Bentham's discovery does not, as we think we shall be able to show, approach in importance to that of gravitation, to which he compares it. At all events, Mr Bentham seems to us to act much as Sir Isaac Newtonwould have done if he had gone about boasting that he was the firstperson who taught bricklayers not to jump off scaffolds and break theirlegs. 

Does Mr Bentham profess to hold out any new motive which may induce mento promote the happiness of the species to which they belong? Not atall. He distinctly admits that, if he is asked why government shouldattempt to produce the greatest possible happiness, he can give noanswer. 

"The real answer, " says he, "appeared to be, that men at large OUGHT notto allow a government to afflict them with more evil or less goodthan they can help. What A GOVERNMENT ought to do is a mysterious andsearching question, which those may answer who know what it means; butwhat other men ought to do is a question of no mystery at all. Theword OUGHT, if it means anything, must have reference to some kind ofinterest or motives; and what interest a government has in doing right, when it happens to be interested in doing wrong, is a question forthe schoolmen. The fact appears to be, that OUGHT is not predicable ofgovernments. The question is not why governments are bound not to dothis or that, but why OTHER MEN should let them if they can help it. Thepoint is not to determine why the lion should not eat sheep, but why menshould not eat their own mutton if they can. "

The principle of Mr Bentham, if we understand it, is this, that mankindought to act so as to produce their greatest happiness. The word OUGHT, he tells us, has no meaning, unless it be used with reference to someinterest. But the interest of a man is synonymous with his greatesthappiness:--and therefore to say that a man ought to do a thing, isto say that it is for his greatest happiness to do it. And to say thatmankind OUGHT to act so as to produce their greatest happiness, is tosay that the greatest happiness is the greatest happiness--and this isall!

Does Mr Bentham's principle tend to make any man wish for anything forwhich he would not have wished, or do anything which he would not havedone, if the principle had never been heard of? If not, it is anutterly useless principle. Now, every man pursues his own happiness orinterest--call it which you will. If his happiness coincides with thehappiness of the species, then, whether he ever heard of the "greatesthappiness principle" or not, he will, to the best of his knowledge andability, attempt to produce the greatest happiness of the species. But, if what he thinks his happiness be inconsistent with the greatesthappiness of mankind, will this new principle convert him to anotherframe of mind? Mr Bentham himself allows, as we have seen, that he cangive no reason why a man should promote the greatest happiness of othersif their greatest happiness be inconsistent with what he thinks his own. We should very much like to know how the Utilitarian principle wouldrun when reduced to one plain imperative proposition? Will it runthus--pursue your own happiness? This is superfluous. Every man pursuesit, according to his light, and always has pursued it, and alwaysmust pursue it. To say that a man has done anything, is to say thathe thought it for his happiness to do it. Will the principle runthus--pursue the greatest happiness of mankind, whether it be your owngreatest happiness or not? This is absurd and impossible; and Benthamhimself allows it to be so. But, if the principle be not stated in oneof these two ways, we cannot imagine how it is to be stated at all. Stated in one of these ways, it is an identical proposition, --true, but utterly barren of consequences. Stated in the other way, it isa contradiction in terms. Mr Bentham has distinctly declined theabsurdity. Are we then to suppose that he adopts the truism?

There are thus, it seems, two great truths which the Utilitarianphilosophy is to communicate to mankind--two truths which are to producea revolution in morals, in laws, in governments, in literature, in thewhole system of life. The first of these is speculative; the second ispractical. The speculative truth is, that the greatest happiness is thegreatest happiness. The practical rule is very simple; for it importsmerely that men should never omit, when they wish for anything, to wishfor it, or when they do anything, to do it! It is a great comfort to usto think that we readily assented to the former of these great doctrinesas soon as it was stated to us; and that we have long endeavoured, as far as human frailty would permit, to conform to the latter in ourpractice. We are, however, inclined to suspect that the calamities ofthe human race have been owing, less to their not knowing that happinesswas happiness, than to their not knowing how to obtain it--less to theirneglecting to do what they did, than to their not being able to do whatthey wished, or not wishing to do what they ought. 

Thus frivolous, thus useless is this philosophy, --"controversiarumferax, operum effoeta, ad garriendum prompta, ad generandum invalida. "(Bacon, "Novum Organum". ) The humble mechanic who discovers some slightimprovement in the construction of safety lamps or steam-vessels doesmore for the happiness of mankind than the "magnificent principle, " asMr Bentham calls it, will do in ten thousand years. The mechanicteaches us how we may in a small degree be better off than we were. TheUtilitarian advises us with great pomp to be as well off as we can. 

The doctrine of a moral sense may be very unphilosophical; but we donot think that it can be proved to be pernicious. Men did not entertaincertain desires and aversions because they believed in a moral sense, but they gave the name of moral sense to a feeling which they found intheir minds, however it came there. If they had given it no name at allit would still have influenced their actions; and it will not be veryeasy to demonstrate that it has influenced their actions the morebecause they have called it the moral sense. The theory of the originalcontract is a fiction, and a very absurd fiction; but in practice itmeant, what the "greatest happiness principle, " if ever it becomes awatchword of political warfare, will mean--that is to say, whateverserved the turn of those who used it. Both the one expression and theother sound very well in debating clubs; but in the real conflicts oflife our passions and interests bid them stand aside and know theirplace. The "greatest happiness principle" has always been latent underthe words, social contract, justice, benevolence, patriotism, liberty, and so forth, just as far as it was for the happiness, real or imagined, of those who used these words to promote the greatest happiness ofmankind. And of this we may be sure, that the words "greatest happiness"will never, in any man's mouth, mean more than the greatest happiness ofothers which is consistent with what he thinks his own. The project ofmending a bad world by teaching people to give new names to old thingsreminds us of Walter Shandy's scheme for compensating the loss of hisson's nose by christening him Trismegistus. What society wants is anew motive--not a new cant. If Mr Bentham can find out any argument yetundiscovered which may induce men to pursue the general happiness, he will indeed be a great benefactor to our species. But those whosehappiness is identical with the general happiness are even now promotingthe general happiness to the very best of their power and knowledge; andMr Bentham himself confesses that he has no means of persuading thosewhose happiness is not identical with the general happiness to act uponhis principle. Is not this, then, darkening counsel by words withoutknowledge? If the only fruit of the "magnificent principle" is to be, that the oppressors and pilferers of the next generation are to talk ofseeking the greatest happiness of the greatest number, just as the sameclass of men have talked in our time of seeking to uphold the Protestantconstitution--just as they talked under Anne of seeking the good of theChurch, and under Cromwell of seeking the Lord--where is the gain? Isnot every great question already enveloped in a sufficiently dark cloudof unmeaning words? Is it so difficult for a man to cant some one ormore of the good old English cants which his father and grandfathercanted before him, that he must learn, in the schools of theUtilitarians, a new sleight of tongue, to make fools clap and wise mensneer? Let our countrymen keep their eyes on the neophytes of this sect, and see whether we turn out to be mistaken in the prediction which wenow hazard. It will before long be found, we prophesy, that, as thecorruption of a dunce is the generation of an Utilitarian, so is thecorruption of an Utilitarian the generation of a jobber. 

The most elevated station that the "greatest happiness principle" isever likely to attain is this, that it may be a fashionable phrase amongnewspaper writers and members of parliament--that it may succeed tothe dignity which has been enjoyed by the "original contract, " by the"constitution of 1688, " and other expressions of the same kind. We donot apprehend that it is a less flexible cant than those which havepreceded it, or that it will less easily furnish a pretext for anydesign for which a pretext may be required. The "original contract"meant in the Convention Parliament the co-ordinate authority of theThree Estates. If there were to be a radical insurrection tomorrow, the"original contract" would stand just as well for annual parliamentsand universal suffrage. The "Glorious Constitution, " again, has meanteverything in turn: the Habeas Corpus Act, the Suspension of the HabeasCorpus Act, the Test Act, the Repeal of the Test Act. There has notbeen for many years a single important measure which has not beenunconstitutional with its opponents, and which its supporters have notmaintained to be agreeable to the true spirit of the constitution. Is iteasier to ascertain what is for the greatest happiness of the humanrace than what is the constitution of England? If not, the "greatesthappiness principle" will be what the "principles of the constitution"are, a thing to be appealed to by everybody, and understood by everybodyin the sense which suits him best. It will mean cheap bread, dearbread, free trade, protecting duties, annual parliaments, septennialparliaments, universal suffrage, Old Sarum, trial by jury, martiallaw--everything, in short, good, bad, or indifferent, of which anyperson, from rapacity or from benevolence, chooses to undertake thedefence. It will mean six-and-eightpence with the attorney, tithes atthe rectory, and game-laws at the manor-house. The Statute of Uses, inappearance the most sweeping legislative reform in our history, was saidto have produced no other effect than that of adding three words toa conveyance. The universal admission of Mr Bentham's great principlewould, as far as we can see, produce no other effect than that thoseorators who, while waiting for a meaning, gain time (like bankers payingin sixpences during a run) by uttering words that mean nothing wouldsubstitute "the greatest happiness, " or rather, as the longer phrase, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number, " for "under existingcircumstances, "--"now that I am on my legs, "--and "Mr Speaker, I, forone, am free to say. " In fact, principles of this sort resemble thoseforms which are sold by law-stationers, with blanks for the names ofparties, and for the special circumstances of every case--mere customaryheadings and conclusions, which are equally at the command of the mosthonest and of the most unrighteous claimant. It is on the filling upthat everything depends. 

The "greatest happiness principle" of Mr Bentham is included in theChristian morality; and, to our thinking, it is there exhibited in aninfinitely more sound and philosophical form than in the Utilitarianspeculations. For in the New Testament it is neither an identicalproposition, nor a contradiction in terms; and, as laid down by MrBentham, it must be either the one or the other. "Do as you would bedone by: Love your neighbour as yourself:" these are the precepts ofJesus Christ. Understood in an enlarged sense, these precepts are, infact, a direction to every man to promote the greatest happiness of thegreatest number. But this direction would be utterly unmeaning, as itactually is in Mr Bentham's philosophy, unless it were accompanied by asanction. In the Christian scheme, accordingly, it is accompanied bya sanction of immense force. To a man whose greatest happiness in thisworld is inconsistent with the greatest happiness of the greatest numberis held out the prospect of an infinite happiness hereafter, from whichhe excludes himself by wronging his fellow-creatures here. 

This is practical philosophy, as practical as that on which penallegislation is founded. A man is told to do something which otherwisehe would not do, and is furnished with a new motive for doing it. MrBentham has no new motive to furnish his disciples with. He has talentssufficient to effect anything that can be effected. But to induce men toact without an inducement is too much, even for him. He should reflectthat the whole vast world of morals cannot be moved unless the mover canobtain some stand for his engines beyond it. He acts as Archimedes wouldhave done, if he had attempted to move the earth by a lever fixed onthe earth. The action and reaction neutralise each other. The artistlabours, and the world remains at rest. Mr Bentham can only tell usto do something which we have always been doing, and should stillhave continued to do, if we had never heard of the "greatest happinessprinciple"--or else to do something which we have no conceivable motivefor doing, and therefore shall not do. Mr Bentham's principle is atbest no more than the golden rule of the Gospel without its sanction. Whatever evils, therefore, have existed in societies in which theauthority of the Gospel is recognised may, a fortiori, as it appears tous, exist in societies in which the Utilitarian principle is recognised. We do not apprehend that it is more difficult for a tyrant or apersecutor to persuade himself and others that in putting to death thosewho oppose his power or differ from his opinions he is pursuing "thegreatest happiness, " than that he is doing as he would be done by. Butreligion gives him a motive for doing as he would be done by: and MrBentham furnishes him no motive to induce him to promote the generalhappiness. If, on the other hand, Mr Bentham's principle mean only thatevery man should pursue his own greatest happiness, he merely assertswhat everybody knows, and recommends what everybody does. 

It is not upon this "greatest happiness principle" that the fame ofMr Bentham will rest. He has not taught people to pursue their ownhappiness; for that they always did. He has not taught them to promotethe happiness of others, at the expense of their own; for that they willnot and cannot do. But he has taught them HOW, in some most importantpoints, to promote their own happiness; and, if his school had emulatedhim as successfully in this respect as in the trick of passing offtruisms for discoveries, the name of Benthamite would have been no wordfor the scoffer. But few of those who consider themselves as in a moreespecial manner his followers have anything in common with him but hisfaults. The whole science of Jurisprudence is his. He has done much forpolitical economy; but we are not aware that in either department anyimprovement has been made by members of his sect. He discovered truths;all that THEY have done has been to make those truths unpopular. Heinvestigated the philosophy of law; he could teach them only to snarl atlawyers. 

We entertain no apprehensions of danger to the institutions of thiscountry from the Utilitarians. Our fears are of a different kind. Wedread the odium and discredit of their alliance. We wish to see a broadand clear line drawn between the judicious friends of practical reformand a sect which, having derived all its influence from the countenancewhich they have imprudently bestowed upon it, hates them with the deadlyhatred of ingratitude. There is not, and we firmly believe that therenever was, in this country a party so unpopular. They have already madethe science of political economy--a science of vast importance tothe welfare of nations--an object of disgust to the majority of thecommunity. The question of parliamentary reform will share the same fateif once an association be formed in the public mind between Reform andUtilitarianism. 

We bear no enmity to any member of the sect; and for Mr Bentham weentertain very high admiration. We know that among his followers thereare some well-intentioned men, and some men of talents; but we cannotsay that we think the logic on which they pride themselves likely toimprove their heads, or the scheme of morality which they have adoptedlikely to improve their hearts. Their theory of morals, however, welldeserves an article to itself; and perhaps, on some future occasion, wemay discuss it more fully than time and space at present allow. 

The preceding article was written, and was actually in types, whena letter from Mr Bentham appeared in the newspapers, importing that, "though he had furnished the Westminster Review with some memorandarespecting 'the greatest happiness principle, ' he had nothing to do withthe remarks on our former article. " We are truly happy to find that thisillustrious man had so small a share in a performance which, for hissake, we have treated with far greater lenity than it deserved. The mistake, however, does not in the least affect any part of ourarguments; and we have therefore thought it unnecessary to cancel orcast anew any of the foregoing pages. Indeed, we are not sorry that theworld should see how respectfully we were disposed to treat a great man, even when we considered him as the author of a very weak and very unfairattack on ourselves. We wish, however, to intimate to the actual writerof that attack that our civilities were intended for the author of the"Preuves Judiciaires, " and the "Defence of Usury"--and not for him. Wecannot conclude, indeed, without expressing a wish--though we fear ithas but little chance of reaching Mr Bentham--that he would endeavourto find better editors for his compositions. If M. Dumont had not beena redacteur of a different description from some of his successors, MrBentham would never have attained the distinction of even giving hisname to a sect. 

*****

UTILITARIAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. (October 1829. )

 Westminster Review (XXII. , Article 16), on the Strictures of the Edinburgh Review (XCVIII. , Article 1), on the Utilitarian Theory of Government, and the "Greatest Happiness Principle. "

We have long been of opinion that the Utilitarians have owed all theirinfluence to a mere delusion--that, while professing to have submittedtheir minds to an intellectual discipline of peculiar severity, to havediscarded all sentimentality, and to have acquired consummate skillin the art of reasoning, they are decidedly inferior to the mass ofeducated men in the very qualities in which they conceive themselves toexcel. They have undoubtedly freed themselves from the dominion of someabsurd notions. But their struggle for intellectual emancipation hasended, as injudicious and violent struggles for political emancipationtoo often end, in a mere change of tyrants. Indeed, we are not sure thatwe do not prefer the venerable nonsense which holds prescriptive swayover the ultra-Tory to the upstart dynasty of prejudices and sophisms bywhich the revolutionists of the moral world have suffered themselves tobe enslaved. 

The Utilitarians have sometimes been abused as intolerant, arrogant, irreligious, --as enemies of literature, of the fine arts, and of thedomestic charities. They have been reviled for some things of whichthey were guilty, and for some of which they were innocent. But scarcelyanybody seems to have perceived that almost all their peculiar faultsarise from the utter want both of comprehensiveness and of precisionin their mode of reasoning. We have, for some time past, been convincedthat this was really the case; and that, whenever their philosophyshould be boldly and unsparingly scrutinised, the world would see thatit had been under a mistake respecting them. 

We have made the experiment; and it has succeeded far beyond our mostsanguine expectations. A chosen champion of the School has come forthagainst us. A specimen of his logical abilities now lies before us;and we pledge ourselves to show that no prebendary at an anti-Catholicmeeting, no true-blue baronet after the third bottle at a Pitt Club, ever displayed such utter incapacity of comprehending or answering anargument as appears in the speculations of this Utilitarian apostle;that he does not understand our meaning, or Mr Mill's meaning, or MrBentham's meaning, or his own meaning; and that the various parts of hissystem--if the name of system can be so misapplied--directly contradicteach other. 

Having shown this, we intend to leave him in undisputed possession ofwhatever advantage he may derive from the last word. We propose only toconvince the public that there is nothing in the far-framed logic of theUtilitarians of which any plain man has reason to be afraid; that thislogic will impose on no man who dares to look it in the face. 

The Westminster Reviewer begins by charging us with havingmisrepresented an important part of Mr Mill's argument. 

"The first extract given by the Edinburgh Reviewers from the Essay wasan insulated passage, purposely despoiled of what had preceded andwhat followed. The author had been observing, that 'some profound andbenevolent investigators of human affairs had adopted the conclusionthat, of all the possible forms of government, absolute monarchy is thebest. ' This is what the reviewers have omitted at the beginning. Hethen adds, as in the extract, that 'Experience, IF WE LOOK ONLY AT THEOUTSIDE OF THE FACTS, appears to be divided on this subject;' there areCaligulas in one place, and kings of Denmark in another. 'As the surfaceof history affords, therefore, no certain principle of decision, WE MUSTGO BEYOND THE SURFACE, and penetrate to the springs within. ' This iswhat the reviewers have omitted at the end. "

It is perfectly true that our quotation from Mr Mill's essay was, likemost other quotations, preceded and followed by something which we didnot quote. But, if the Westminster Reviewer means to say that eitherwhat preceded or what followed would, if quoted, have shown that we puta wrong interpretation on the passage which was extracted, he does notunderstand Mr Mill rightly. 

Mr Mill undoubtedly says that, "as the surface of history affordsno certain principle of decision, we must go beyond the surface, andpenetrate to the springs within. " But these expressions will admit ofseveral interpretations. In what sense, then, does Mr Mill use them?If he means that we ought to inspect the facts with close attention, he means what is rational. But, if he means that we ought to leave thefacts, with all their apparent inconsistencies, unexplained--to lay downa general principle of the widest extent, and to deduce doctrines fromthat principle by syllogistic argument, without pausing to considerwhether those doctrines be or be not consistent with the facts, --then hemeans what is irrational; and this is clearly what he does mean: forhe immediately begins, without offering the least explanation of thecontradictory appearances which he has himself described, to go beyondthe surface in the following manner:--"That one human being willdesire to render the person and property of another subservient to hispleasures, notwithstanding the pain or loss of pleasure which it mayoccasion to that other individual, is the foundation of government. The desire of the object implies the desire of the power necessary toaccomplish the object. " And thus he proceeds to deduce consequencesdirectly inconsistent with what he has himself stated respecting thesituation of the Danish people. 

If we assume that the object of government is the preservation of thepersons and property of men, then we must hold that, wherever thatobject is attained, there the principle of good government exists. Ifthat object be attained both in Denmark and in the United Statesof America, then that which makes government good must exist, underwhatever disguise of title or name, both in Denmark and in the UnitedStates. If men lived in fear for their lives and their possessions underNero and under the National Convention, it follows that the causes fromwhich misgovernment proceeds existed both in the despotism of Rome andin the democracy of France. What, then, is that which, being foundin Denmark and in the United States, and not being found in the RomanEmpire or under the administration of Robespierre, renders governments, widely differing in their external form, practically good? Be it what itmay, it certainly is not that which Mr Mill proves a priori that it mustbe, --a democratic representative assembly. For the Danes have no suchassembly. 

The latent principle of good government ought to be tracked, as itappears to us, in the same manner in which Lord Bacon proposed to trackthe principle of Heat. Make as large a list as possible, said that greatman, of those bodies in which, however widely they differ from eachother in appearance, we perceive heat; and as large a list as possibleof those which, while they bear a general resemblance to hot bodies, arenevertheless not hot. Observe the different degrees of heat in differenthot bodies; and then, if there be something which is found in all hotbodies, and of which the increase or diminution is always accompaniedby an increase or diminution of heat, we may hope that we have reallydiscovered the object of our search. In the same manner we ought toexamine the constitution of all those communities in which, underwhatever form, the blessings of good government are enjoyed; and todiscover, if possible, in what they resemble each other, and in whatthey all differ from those societies in which the object of governmentis not attained. By proceeding thus we shall arrive, not indeed at aperfect theory of government, but at a theory which will be of greatpractical use, and which the experience of every successive generationwill probably bring nearer and nearer to perfection. 

The inconsistencies into which Mr Mill has been betrayed by taking adifferent course ought to serve as a warning to all speculators. BecauseDenmark is well governed by a monarch who, in appearance at least, isabsolute, Mr Mill thinks that the only mode of arriving at the trueprinciples of government is to deduce them a priori from the laws ofhuman nature. And what conclusion does he bring out by this deduction?We will give it in his own words:--"In the grand discovery ofmodern times, the system of representation, the solution of all thedifficulties, both speculative and practical, will perhaps be found. Ifit cannot, we seem to be forced upon the extraordinary conclusion thatgood government is impossible. " That the Danes are well governed withouta representation is a reason for deducing the theory of governmentfrom a general principle from which it necessarily follows that goodgovernment is impossible without a representation! We have done ourbest to put this question plainly; and we think that, if the WestminsterReviewer will read over what we have written twice or thrice withpatience and attention, some glimpse of our meaning will break in evenon his mind. 

Some objections follow, so frivolous and unfair, that we are almostashamed to notice them. 

"When it was said that there was in Denmark a balanced contest betweenthe king and the nobility, what was said was, that there was a balancedcontest, but it did not last. It was balanced till something put an endto the balance; and so is everything else. That such a balance will notlast, is precisely what Mr Mill had demonstrated. "

Mr Mill, we positively affirm, pretends to demonstrate, not merely thata balanced contest between the king and the aristocracy will not last, but that the chances are as infinity to one against the existence ofsuch a balanced contest. This is a mere question of fact. We quote thewords of the essay, and defy the Westminster Reviewer to impeach ouraccuracy:--

"It seems impossible that such equality should ever exist. How is it tobe established? Or by what criterion is it to be ascertained? If thereis no such criterion, it must, in all cases, be the result of chance. Ifso, the chances against it are as infinity to one. "

The Reviewer has confounded the division of power with the balance orequal division of power. Mr Mill says that the division of power cannever exist long, because it is next to impossible that the equaldivision of power should ever exist at all. 

"When Mr Mill asserted that it cannot be for the interest of either themonarchy or the aristocracy to combine with the democracy, it is plainhe did not assert that if the monarchy and aristocracy were in doubtfulcontest with each other, they would not, either of them, accept of theassistance of the democracy. He spoke of their taking the side ofthe democracy; not of their allowing the democracy to take side withthemselves. "

If Mr Mill meant anything, he must have meant this--that the monarchyand the aristocracy will never forget their enmity to the democracy intheir enmity to each other. 

"The monarchy and aristocracy, " says he, "have all possible motives forendeavouring to obtain unlimited power over the persons and propertyof the community. The consequence is inevitable. They have all possiblemotives for combining to obtain that power, and unless the peoplehave power enough to be a match for both they have no protection. Thebalance, therefore, is a thing the existence of which upon the bestpossible evidence is to be regarded as impossible. "

If Mr Mill meant only what the Westminster Reviewer conceives him tohave meant, his argument would leave the popular theory of the balancequite untouched. For it is the very theory of the balance that the helpof the people will be solicited by the nobles when hard pressed by theking, and by the king when hard pressed by the nobles; and that, as theprice of giving alternate support to the crown and the aristocracy, theywill obtain something for themselves, as the Reviewer admits that theyhave done in Denmark. If Mr Mill admits this, he admits the only theoryof the balance of which we ever heard--that very theory which he hasdeclared to be wild and chimerical. If he denies it, he is at issue withthe Westminster Reviewer as to the phenomena of the Danish government. 

We now come to a more important passage. Our opponent has discovered, ashe conceives, a radical error which runs through our whole argument, andvitiates every part of it. We suspect that we shall spoil his triumph. 

"Mr Mill never asserted 'THAT UNDER NO DESPOTIC GOVERNMENT DOES ANYHUMAN BEING, EXCEPT THE TOOLS OF THE SOVEREIGN, POSSESS MORE THAN THENECESSARIES OF LIFE, AND THAT THE MOST INTENSE DEGREE OF TERROR ISKEPT UP BY CONSTANT CRUELTY. ' He said that absolute power leads tosuch results 'by infallible sequence, where power over a community isattained, AND NOTHING CHECKS. ' The critic on the Mount never made a morepalpable misquotation. 

"The spirit of this misquotation runs through every part of the replyof the Edinburgh Review that relates to the Essay on Government; and isrepeated in as many shapes as the Roman pork. The whole description of'Mr Mill's argument against despotism, '--including the illustration fromright-angled triangles and the square of the hypothenuse, --is founded onthis invention of saying what an author has not said, and leaving unsaidwhat he has. "

We thought, and still think, for reasons which our readers will soonunderstand, that we represented Mr Mill's principle quite fairly, andaccording to the rule of law and common sense, ut res magis valeat quampereat. Let us, however, give him all the advantage of the explanationtendered by his advocate, and see what he will gain by it. 

The Utilitarian doctrine then is, not that despots and aristocracieswill always plunder and oppress the people to the last point, but thatthey will do so if nothing checks them. 

In the first place, it is quite clear that the doctrine thus stated isof no use at all, unless the force of the checks be estimated. The firstlaw of motion is, that a ball once projected will fly on to all eternitywith undiminished velocity, unless something checks. The fact is, thata ball stops in a few seconds after proceeding a few yards with veryvariable motion. Every man would wring his child's neck and pick hisfriend's pocket if nothing checked him. In fact, the principle thusstated means only that governments will oppress unless they abstainfrom oppressing. This is quite true, we own. But we might with equalpropriety turn the maxim round, and lay it down, as the fundamentalprinciple of government, that all rulers will govern well, unless somemotive interferes to keep them from doing so. 

If there be, as the Westminster Reviewer acknowledges, certain checkswhich, under political institutions the most arbitrary in seeming, sometimes produce good government, and almost always place somerestraint on the rapacity and cruelty of the powerful, surely theknowledge of those checks, of their nature, and of their effect, mustbe a most important part of the science of government. Does Mr Mill sayanything upon this part of the subject? Not one word. 

The line of defence now taken by the Utilitarians evidently degrades MrMill's theory of government from the rank which, till within the lastfew months, was claimed for it by the whole sect. It is no longer apractical system, fit to guide statesmen, but merely a barren exerciseof the intellect, like those propositions in mechanics in which theeffect of friction and of the resistance of the air is left out ofthe question; and which, therefore, though correctly deduced from thepremises, are in practice utterly false. For, if Mr Mill professes toprove only that absolute monarchy and aristocracy are perniciouswithout checks, --if he allows that there are checks which produce goodgovernment even under absolute monarchs and aristocracies, --and if heomits to tell us what those checks are, and what effects they produceunder different circumstances, --he surely gives us no information whichcan be of real utility. 

But the fact is, --and it is most extraordinary that the WestminsterReviewer should not have perceived it--that if once the existenceof checks on the abuse of power in monarchies and aristocracies beadmitted, the whole of Mr Mill's theory falls to the ground at once. This is so palpable, that in spite of the opinion of the WestminsterReviewer, we must acquit Mr Mill of having intended to make such anadmission. We still think that the words, "where power over a communityis attained, and nothing checks, " must not be understood to mean thatunder a monarchical or aristocratical form of government there canreally be any check which can in any degree mitigate the wretchedness ofthe people. 

For all possible checks may be classed under two general heads, --wantof will, and want of power. Now, if a king or an aristocracy, havingthe power to plunder and oppress the people, can want the will, all MrMill's principles of human nature must be pronounced unsound. He tellsus, "that the desire to possess unlimited power of inflicting pain uponothers, is an inseparable part of human nature;" and that "a chain ofinference, close and strong to a most unusual degree, " leads to theconclusion that those who possess this power will always desire to useit. It is plain, therefore, that, if Mr Mill's principles be sound, thecheck on a monarchical or an aristocratical government will not be thewant of will to oppress. 

If a king or an aristocracy, having, as Mr Mill tells us that theyalways must have, the will to oppress the people with the utmostseverity, want the power, then the government, by whatever name it maybe called, must be virtually a mixed government or a pure democracy: forit is quite clear that the people possess some power in the state--somemeans of influencing the nominal rulers. But Mr Mill has demonstratedthat no mixed government can possibly exist, or at least that such agovernment must come to a very speedy end: therefore, every country inwhich people not in the service of the government have, for any lengthof time, been permitted to accumulate more than the bare means ofsubsistence must be a pure democracy. That is to say, France before therevolution, and Ireland during the last century, were pure democracies. Prussia, Austria, Russia, all the governments of the civilised world, are pure democracies. If this be not a reductio ad absurdum, we do notknow what is. 

The errors of Mr Mill proceed principally from that radical vice in hisreasoning which, in our last number we described in the words of LordBacon. The Westminster Reviewer is unable to discover the meaning of ourextracts from the "Novum Organum", and expresses himself as follows:

"The quotations from Lord Bacon are misapplications, such as anybody maymake to anything he dislikes. There is no more resemblance betweenpain, pleasure, motives, etc. , and substantia, generatio, corruptio, elementum, materia, --than between lines angles, magnitudes, etc. , andthe same. "

It would perhaps be unreasonable to expect that a writer who cannotunderstand his own English should understand Lord Bacon's Latin. We willtherefore attempt to make our meaning clearer. 

What Lord Bacon blames in the schoolmen of his time is this, --thatthey reasoned syllogistically on words which had not been defined withprecision; such as moist, dry, generation, corruption, and so forth. Mr Mill's error is exactly of the same kind. He reasons syllogisticallyabout power, pleasure, and pain, without attaching any definite notionto any one of those words. There is no more resemblance, says theWestminster Reviewer, between pain and substantia than between pain anda line or an angle. By his permission, in the very point to whichLord Bacon's observation applies, Mr Mill's subjects do resemble thesubstantia and elementum of the schoolmen and differ from the lines andmagnitudes of Euclid. We can reason a priori on mathematics, becausewe can define with an exactitude which precludes all possibility ofconfusion. If a mathematician were to admit the least laxity into hisnotions, if he were to allow himself to be deluded by the vague sensewhich words bear in popular use, or by the aspect of an ill-drawndiagram, if he were to forget in his reasonings that a point wasindivisible, or that the definition of a line excluded breadth, there would be no end to his blunders. The schoolmen tried to reasonmathematically about things which had not been, and perhaps could notbe, defined with mathematical accuracy. We know the result. Mr Mill hasin our time attempted to do the same. He talks of power, for example, asif the meaning of the word power were as determinate as the meaning ofthe word circle. But, when we analyse his speculations, we find thathis notion of power is, in the words of Bacon, "phantiastica et maleterminata. "

There are two senses in which we may use the word "power, " and thosewords which denote the various distributions of power, as, for example, "monarchy":--the one sense popular and superficial, the other morescientific and accurate. Mr Mill, since he chose to reason a priori, ought to have clearly pointed out in which sense he intended to usewords of this kind, and to have adhered inflexibly to the sense on whichhe fixed. Instead of doing this, he flies backwards and forwards fromthe one sense to the other, and brings out conclusions at last whichsuit neither. 

The state of those two communities to which he has himself referred--thekingdom of Denmark and the empire of Rome--may serve to illustrate ourmeaning. Looking merely at the surface of things, we should call Denmarka despotic monarchy, and the Roman world, in the first century afterChrist, an aristocratical republic. Caligula was, in theory, nothingmore than a magistrate elected by the senate, and subject to the senate. That irresponsible dignity which, in the most limited monarchies of ourtime, is ascribed to the person of the sovereign never belonged to theearlier Caesars. The sentence of death which the great council of thecommonwealth passed on Nero was strictly according to the theory of theconstitution. Yet, in fact, the power of the Roman emperors approachednearer to absolute dominion than that of any prince in modern Europe. On the other hand, the King of Denmark, in theory the most despotic ofprinces, would in practice find it most perilous to indulge in crueltyand licentiousness. Nor is there, we believe, at the present moment asingle sovereign in our part of the world who has so much real powerover the lives of his subjects as Robespierre, while he lodged at achandler's and dined at a restaurateur's, exercised over the lives ofthose whom he called his fellow citizens. 

Mr Mill and the Westminster Reviewer seem to agree that there cannotlong exist in any society a division of power between a monarch, anaristocracy, and the people, or between any two of them. However thepower be distributed, one of the three parties will, according to them, inevitably monopolise the whole. Now, what is here meant by power? If MrMill speaks of the external semblance of power, --of power recognised bythe theory of the constitution, --he is palpably wrong. In England, forexample, we have had for ages the name and form of a mixed government, if nothing more. Indeed, Mr Mill himself owns that there are appearanceswhich have given colour to the theory of the balance, though hemaintains that these appearances are delusive. But, if he uses the wordpower in a deeper and philosophical sense, he is, if possible, stillmore in the wrong than on the former supposition. For, if he hadconsidered in what the power of one human being over other human beingsmust ultimately consist, he would have perceived, not only that thereare mixed governments in the world, but that all the governments in theworld, and all the governments which can even be conceived as existingin the world, are virtually mixed. 

If a king possessed the lamp of Aladdin, --if he governed by the helpof a genius who carried away the daughters and wives of his subjectsthrough the air to the royal Parc-aux-cerfs, and turned into stone everyman who wagged a finger against his majesty's government, there wouldindeed be an unmixed despotism. But, fortunately, a ruler can begratified only by means of his subjects. His power depends on theirobedience; and, as any three or four of them are more than a match forhim by himself, he can only enforce the unwilling obedience of some bymeans of the willing obedience of others. 

Take any of those who are popularly called absolute princes--Napoleonfor example. Could Napoleon have walked through Paris, cutting off thehead of one person in every house which he passed? Certainly not withoutthe assistance of an army. If not, why not? Because the people hadsufficient physical power to resist him, and would have put forth thatpower in defence of their lives and of the lives of their children. In other words, there was a portion of power in the democracy underNapoleon. Napoleon might probably have indulged himself in such anatrocious freak of power if his army would have seconded him. But, ifhis army had taken part with the people, he would have found himselfutterly helpless; and, even if they had obeyed his orders against thepeople, they would not have suffered him to decimate their own body. Inother words, there was a portion of power in the hands of a minority ofthe people, that is to say, in the hands of an aristocracy, under thereign of Napoleon. 

To come nearer home, --Mr Mill tells us that it is a mistake to imaginethat the English government is mixed. He holds, we suppose, with all thepoliticians of the Utilitarian school, that it is purely aristocratical. There certainly is an aristocracy in England; and we are afraid thattheir power is greater than it ought to be. They have power enough tokeep up the game-laws and corn-laws; but they have not power enough tosubject the bodies of men of the lowest class to wanton outrage at theirpleasure. Suppose that they were to make a law that any gentleman oftwo thousand a-year might have a day-labourer or a pauper flogged witha cat-of-nine-tails whenever the whim might take him. It is quite clearthat the first day on which such flagellation should be administeredwould be the last day of the English aristocracy. In this point, andin many other points which might be named, the commonalty in our islandenjoy a security quite as complete as if they exercised the right ofuniversal suffrage. We say, therefore, that the English people havein their own hands a sufficient guarantee that in some points thearistocracy will conform to their wishes;--in other words, they havea certain portion of power over the aristocracy. Therefore the Englishgovernment is mixed. 

Wherever a king or an oligarchy refrains from the last extremity ofrapacity and tyranny through fear of the resistance of the people, there the constitution, whatever it may be called, is in some measuredemocratical. The admixture of democratic power may be slight. It may bemuch slighter than it ought to be; but some admixture there is. Wherevera numerical minority, by means of superior wealth or intelligence, of political concert, or of military discipline, exercises a greaterinfluence on the society than any other equal number of persons, --there, whatever the form of government may be called, a mixture of aristocracydoes in fact exist. And, wherever a single man, from whatever cause, is so necessary to the community, or to any portion of it, that hepossesses more power than any other man, there is a mixture of monarchy. This is the philosophical classification of governments: and if weuse this classification we shall find, not only that there are mixedgovernments, but that all governments are, and must always be, mixed. But we may safely challenge Mr Mill to give any definition of power, orto make any classification of governments, which shall bear him out inhis assertion that a lasting division of authority is impracticable. 

It is evidently on the real distribution of power, and not on names andbadges, that the happiness of nations must depend. The representativesystem, though doubtless a great and precious discovery in politics, isonly one of the many modes in which the democratic part of the communitycan efficiently check the governing few. That certain men have beenchosen as deputies of the people, --that there is a piece of paperstating such deputies to possess certain powers, --these circumstancesin themselves constitute no security for good government. Such aconstitution nominally existed in France; while, in fact, an oligarchyof committees and clubs trampled at once on the electors and theelected. Representation is a very happy contrivance for enabling largebodies of men to exert their power with less risk of disorder than therewould otherwise be. But, assuredly, it does not of itself give power. Unless a representative assembly is sure of being supported in thelast resort by the physical strength of large masses who have spirit todefend the constitution and sense to defend it in concert, the mob ofthe town in which it meets may overawe it;--the howls of the listenersin its glory may silence its deliberations;--an able and daringindividual may dissolve it. And, if that sense and that spirit ofwhich we speak be diffused through a society, then, even without arepresentative assembly, that society will enjoy many of the blessingsof good government. 

Which is the better able to defend himself;--a strong man with nothingbut his fists, or a paralytic cripple encumbered with a sword which hecannot lift? Such, we believe, is the difference between Denmark andsome new republics in which the constitutional forms of the UnitedStates have been most sedulously imitated. 

Look at the Long Parliament on the day on which Charles came to seizethe five members: and look at it again on the day when Cromwell stampedwith his foot on its floor. On which day was its apparent power thegreater? On which day was its real power the less? Nominally subject, itwas able to defy the sovereign. Nominally sovereign, it was turned outof doors by its servant. 

Constitutions are in politics what paper money is in commerce. Theyafford great facilities and conveniences. But we must not attribute tothem that value which really belongs to what they represent. Theyare not power, but symbols of power, and will, in an emergency, provealtogether useless unless the power for which they stand be forthcoming. The real power by which the community is governed is made up of all themeans which all its members possess of giving pleasure or pain to eachother. 

Great light may be thrown on the nature of a circulating medium by thephenomena of a state of barter. And in the same manner it may be usefulto those who wish to comprehend the nature and operation of the outwardsigns of power to look at communities in which no such signs exist;for example, at the great community of nations. There we find nothinganalogous to a constitution; but do we not find a government? We do infact find government in its purest, and simplest, and most intelligibleform. We see one portion of power acting directly on another portionof power. We see a certain police kept up; the weak to a certaindegree protected; the strong to a certain degree restrained. We see theprinciple of the balance in constant operation. We see the whole systemsometimes undisturbed by any attempt at encroachment for twenty orthirty years at a time; and all this is produced without a legislativeassembly, or an executive magistracy--without tribunals--without anycode which deserves the name; solely by the mutual hopes and fears ofthe various members of the federation. In the community of nations, the first appeal is to physical force. In communities of men, formsof government serve to put off that appeal, and often render itunnecessary. But it is still open to the oppressed or the ambitious. 

Of course, we do not mean to deny that a form of government will, afterit has existed for a long time, materially affect the real distributionof power throughout the community. This is because those who administera government, with their dependants, form a compact and disciplinedbody, which, acting methodically and in concert, is more powerful thanany other equally numerous body which is inferior in organisation. The power of rulers is not, as superficial observers sometimes seemto think, a thing sui generis. It is exactly similar in kind, thoughgenerally superior in amount, to that of any set of conspirators whoplot to overthrow it. We have seen in our time the most extensive andthe best organised conspiracy that ever existed--a conspiracy whichpossessed all the elements of real power in so great a degree that itwas able to cope with a strong government, and to triumph over it--theCatholic Association. An Utilitarian would tell us, we suppose, that theIrish Catholics had no portion of political power whatever on the firstday of the late Session of Parliament. 

Let us really go beyond the surface of facts: let us, in the sound senseof the words, penetrate to the springs within; and the deeper we go themore reason shall we find to smile at those theorists who hold that thesole hope of the human race is in a rule-of-three sum and a ballot-box. 

We must now return to the Westminster Reviewer. The following paragraphis an excellent specimen of his peculiar mode of understanding andanswering arguments. 

"The reply to the argument against 'saturation, ' supplies its ownanswer. The reason why it is of no use to try to 'saturate' is preciselywhat the Edinburgh Reviewers have suggested, --'THAT THERE IS NO LIMITTO THE NUMBER OF THIEVES. ' There are the thieves, and the thieves'cousins, --with their men-servants, their maid-servants, and their littleones, to the fortieth generation. It is true, that 'a man cannot becomea king or a member of the aristocracy whenever he chooses;' but if thereis to be no limit to the depredators except their own inclination toincrease and multiply, the situation of those who are to suffer is aswretched as it needs be. It is impossible to define what ARE 'corporalpleasures. ' A Duchess of Cleveland was 'a corporal pleasure. ' Themost disgraceful period in the history of any nation--that of theRestoration--presents an instance of the length to which it is possibleto go in an attempt to 'saturate' with pleasures of this kind. "

To reason with such a writer is like talking to a deaf man who catchesat a stray word, makes answer beside the mark, and is led further andfurther into error by every attempt to explain. Yet, that our readersmay fully appreciate the abilities of the new philosophers, we shalltake the trouble to go over some of our ground again. 

Mr Mill attempts to prove that there is no point of saturation with theobjects of human desire. He then takes it for granted that men have noobjects of desire but those which can be obtained only at the expenseof the happiness of others. Hence he infers that absolute monarchsand aristocracies will necessarily oppress and pillage the people to afrightful extent. 

We answered in substance thus. There are two kinds of objects of desire;those which give mere bodily pleasure, and those which please throughthe medium of associations. Objects of the former class, it is true, aman cannot obtain without depriving somebody else of a share. But thenwith these every man is soon satisfied. A king or an aristocracycannot spend any very large portion of the national wealth on the merepleasures of sense. With the pleasures which belong to us as reasoningand imaginative beings we are never satiated, it is true; but then, onthe other hand, many of those pleasures can be obtained without injuryto any person, and some of them can be obtained only by doing good toothers. 

The Westminster Reviewer, in his former attack on us, laughed at us forsaying that a king or an aristocracy could not be easily satiated withthe pleasures of sense, and asked why the same course was not tried withthieves. We were not a little surprised at so silly an objection fromthe pen, as we imagined, of Mr Bentham. We returned, however, a verysimple answer. There is no limit to the number of thieves. Any man whochooses can steal: but a man cannot become a member of the aristocracyor a king whenever he chooses. To satiate one thief, is to tempt twentyother people to steal. But by satiating one king or five hundred nobleswith bodily pleasures we do not produce more kings or more nobles. Theanswer of the Westminster Reviewer we have quoted above; and it willamply repay our readers for the trouble of examining it. We never readany passage which indicated notions so vague and confused. The numberof the thieves, says our Utilitarian, is not limited. For there are thedependants and friends of the king and of the nobles. Is it possiblethat he should not perceive that this comes under a different head? Thebodily pleasures which a man in power dispenses among his creatures arebodily pleasures as respects his creatures, no doubt. But the pleasurewhich he derives from bestowing them is not a bodily pleasure. It is oneof those pleasures which belong to him as a reasoning and imaginativebeing. No man of common understanding can have failed to perceive that, when we said that a king or an aristocracy might easily be supplied tosatiety with sensual pleasures, we were speaking of sensual pleasuresdirectly enjoyed by themselves. But "it is impossible, " says theReviewer, "to define what are corporal pleasures. " Our brother wouldindeed, we suspect, find it a difficult task; nor, if we are to judgeof his genius for classification from the specimen which immediatelyfollows, would we advise him to make the attempt. "A Duchess ofCleveland was a corporal pleasure. " And to this wise remark is appendeda note, setting forth that Charles the Second gave to the Duchessof Cleveland the money which he ought to have spent on the war withHolland. We scarcely know how to answer a man who unites so muchpretension to so much ignorance. There are, among the many Utilitarianswho talk about Hume, Condillac, and Hartley, a few who have readthose writers. Let the Reviewer ask one of these what he thinks on thesubject. We shall not undertake to whip a pupil of so little promisethrough his first course of metaphysics. We shall, therefore, onlysay--leaving him to guess and wonder what we can mean--that, inour opinion, the Duchess of Cleveland was not a merely corporalpleasure, --that the feeling which leads a prince to prefer one woman toall others, and to lavish the wealth of kingdoms on her, is a feelingwhich can only be explained by the law of association. 

But we are tired, and even more ashamed than tired, of exposing theseblunders. The whole article is of a piece. One passage, however, we mustselect, because it contains a very gross misrepresentation. 

"'THEY NEVER ALLUDED TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVINGTHAT THE POOR WERE INCLINED TO ROB THE RICH. ' They only said, 'as soonas the poor AGAIN began to compare their cottages and salads with thehotels and banquets of the rich, there would have been another scramblefor property, another general confiscation, ' etc. "

We said that, IF MR MILL'S PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN NATURE WERE CORRECT, there would have been another scramble for property, and anotherconfiscation. We particularly pointed this out in our last article. Weshowed the Westminster Reviewer that he had misunderstood us. We dweltparticularly on the condition which was introduced into our statement. We said that we had not given, and did not mean to give, any opinionof our own. And, after this, the Westminster Reviewer thinks proper torepeat his former misrepresentation, without taking the least notice ofthat qualification to which we, in the most marked manner, called hisattention. 

We hasten on to the most curious part of the article under ourconsideration--the defence of the "greatest happiness principle. " TheReviewer charges us with having quite mistaken its nature. 

"All that they have established is, that they do not understand it. Instead of the truism of the Whigs, 'that the greatest happiness is thegreatest happiness, ' what Mr Bentham had demonstrated, or at all eventshad laid such foundations that there was no trouble in demonstrating, was, that the greatest happiness of the individual was in the long runto be obtained by pursuing the greatest happiness of the aggregate. "

It was distinctly admitted by the Westminster Reviewer, as we remarkedin our last article, that he could give no answer to the question, --whygovernments should attempt to produce the greatest possible happiness?The Reviewer replies thus:--

"Nothing of the kind will be admitted at all. In the passage thusselected to be tacked to the other, the question started was, concerning'the object of government;' in which government was spoken of as anoperation, not as anything that is capable of feeling pleasure orpain. In this sense it is true enough, that OUGHT is not predicable ofgovernments. "

We will quote, once again, the passage which we quoted in our lastNumber; and we really hope that our brother critic will feel somethinglike shame while he peruses it. 

"The real answer appeared to be, that men at large OUGHT not to allowa government to afflict them with more evil or less good, than theycan help. What a GOVERNMENT ought to do is a mysterious and searchingquestion which those may answer who know what it means; but what othermen ought to do is a question of no mystery at all. The word OUGHT, if it means anything, must have reference to some kind of interest ormotives; and what interest a government has in doing right, whenit happens to be interested in doing wrong, is a question for theschoolmen. The fact appears to be that OUGHT is not predicable ofgovernments. The question is not, why governments are bound not to dothis or that, but why other men should let them if they can help it. Thepoint is not to determine why the lion should not eat sheep, but why menshould not eat their own mutton if they can. "

We defy the Westminster Reviewer to reconcile this passage with the"general happiness principle" as he now states it. He tells us thathe meant by government, not the people invested with the powers ofgovernment, but a mere OPERATION incapable of feeling pleasure or pain. We say, that he meant the people invested with the powers of government, and nothing else. It is true that OUGHT is not predicable of anoperation. But who would ever dream of raising any question about theDUTIES of an operation? What did the Reviewer mean by saying, thata government could not be interested in doing right because it wasinterested in doing wrong? Can an operation be interested in either?And what did he mean by his comparison about the lion? Is a lion anoperation incapable of pain or pleasure? And what did he mean by theexpression, "other men, " so obviously opposed to the word "government?"But let the public judge between us. It is superfluous to argue a pointso clear. 

The Reviewer does indeed seem to feel that his expressions cannot beexplained away, and attempts to shuffle out of the difficulty by owning, that "the double meaning of the word government was not got clear ofwithout confusion. " He has now, at all events, he assures us, madehimself master of Mr Bentham's philosophy. The real and genuine"greatest happiness principle" is, that the greatest happiness of everyindividual is identical with the greatest happiness of society; and allother "greatest happiness principles" whatever are counterfeits. "This, "says he, "is the spirit of Mr Bentham's principle; and if there isanything opposed to it in any former statement it may be corrected bythe present. "

Assuredly, if a fair and honourable opponent had, in discussing aquestion so abstruse as that concerning the origin of moral obligation, made some unguarded admission inconsistent with the spirit of hisdoctrines, we should not be inclined to triumph over him. But notenderness is due to a writer who, in the very act of confessing hisblunders, insults those by whom his blunders have been detected, and accuses them of misunderstanding what, in fact, he has himselfmis-stated. 

The whole of this transaction illustrates excellently the real characterof this sect. A paper comes forth, professing to contain a fulldevelopment of the "greatest happiness principle, " with the latestimprovements of Mr Bentham. The writer boasts that his article hasthe honour of being the announcement and the organ of this wonderfuldiscovery, which is to make "the bones of sages and patriots stir withintheir tombs. "

This "magnificent principle" is then stated thus: Mankind ought topursue their greatest happiness. But there are persons whose interest isopposed to the greatest happiness of mankind. OUGHT is not predicable ofsuch persons. For the word OUGHT has no meaning unless it be used withreference to some interest. 

We answered, with much more lenity than we should have shown to suchnonsense, had it not proceeded, as we supposed, from Mr Bentham, thatinterest was synonymous with greatest happiness; and that, therefore, ifthe word OUGHT has no meaning, unless used with reference to interest, then, to say that mankind ought to pursue their greatest happiness, issimply to say, that the greatest happiness is the greatest happiness;that every individual pursues his own happiness; that either whathe thinks his happiness must coincide with the greatest happiness ofsociety or not; that, if what he thinks his happiness coincides with thegreatest happiness of society, he will attempt to promote the greatesthappiness of society whether he ever heard of the "greatest happinessprinciple" or not; and that, by the admission of the WestminsterReviewer, if his happiness is inconsistent with the greatest happinessof society, there is no reason why he should promote the greatesthappiness of society. Now, that there are individuals who think that fortheir happiness which is not for the greatest happiness of society isevident. The Westminster Reviewer allowed that some of these individualswere in the right; and did not pretend to give any reason which couldinduce any one of them to think himself in the wrong. So that the"magnificent principle" turned out to be, either a truism or acontradiction in terms; either this maxim--"Do what you do;" or thismaxim, "Do what you cannot do. "

The Westminster Reviewer had the wit to see that he could not defendthis palpable nonsense; but, instead of manfully owning that he hadmisunderstood the whole nature of the "greatest happiness principle" inthe summer, and had obtained new light during the autumn, he attemptsto withdraw the former principle unobserved, and to substitute another, directly opposed to it, in its place; clamouring all the time againstour unfairness, like one who, while changing the cards, diverts theattention of the table from his sleight of hand by vociferating chargesof foul play against other people. 

The "greatest happiness principle" for the present quarter is thenthis, --that every individual will best promote his own happiness inthis world, religious considerations being left out of the question, by promoting the greatest happiness of the whole species. Andthis principle, we are told, holds good with respect to kings andaristocracies as well as with other people. 

"It is certain that the individual operators in any government, if theywere thoroughly intelligent and entered into a perfect calculationof all existing chances, would seek for their own happiness in thepromotion of the general; which brings them, if they knew it, underMr Bentham's rule. The mistake of supposing the contrary, lies inconfounding criminals who have had the luck to escape punishment withthose who have the risk still before them. Suppose, for instance, amember of the House of Commons were at this moment to debate withinhimself, whether it would be for his ultimate happiness to begin, according to his ability, to misgovern. If he could be sure of beingas lucky as some that are dead and gone, there might be difficulty infinding him an answer. But he is NOT sure; and never can be, till heis dead. He does not know that he is not close upon the moment whenmisgovernment such as he is tempted to contemplate, will be made aterrible example of. It is not fair to pick out the instance of thethief that has died unhanged. The question is, whether thieving is atthis moment an advisable trade to begin with all the possibilities ofhanging not got over? This is the spirit of Mr Bentham's principle; andif there is anything opposed to it in any former statement, it may becorrected by the present. "

We hope that we have now at last got to the real "magnificentprinciple, "--to the principle which is really to make "the bones of thesages and patriots stir. " What effect it may produce on the bones ofthe dead we shall not pretend to decide; but we are sure that it will dovery little for the happiness of the living. 

In the first place, nothing is more certain than this, that theUtilitarian theory of government, as developed in Mr Mill's Essay andin all the other works on the subject which have been put forth by thesect, rests on those two principles, --that men follow their interest, and that the interest of individuals may be, and in fact perpetuallyis, opposed to the interest of society. Unless these two principles begranted, Mr Mill's Essay does not contain one sound sentence. All hisarguments against monarchy and aristocracy, all his arguments in favourof democracy, nay, the very argument by which he shows that there isany necessity for having government at all, must be rejected as utterlyworthless. 

This is so palpable that even the Westminster Reviewer, though not themost clear-sighted of men, could not help seeing it. Accordingly, heattempts to guard himself against the objection, after the manner ofsuch reasoners, by committing two blunders instead of one. "All this, "says he, "only shows that the members of a government would do well ifthey were all-wise, " and he proceeds to tell us that, as rulers are notall-wise, they will invariably act against this principle wherever theycan, so that the democratical checks will still be necessary to producegood government. 

No form which human folly takes is so richly and exquisitely laughableas the spectacle of an Utilitarian in a dilemma. What earthly good canthere be in a principle upon which no man will act until he is all-wise?A certain most important doctrine, we are told, has been demonstrated soclearly that it ought to be the foundation of the science of government. And yet the whole frame of government is to be constituted exactly asif this fundamental doctrine were false, and on the supposition that nohuman being will ever act as if he believed it to be true!

The whole argument of the Utilitarians in favour of universal suffrageproceeds on the supposition that even the rudest and most uneducated mencannot, for any length of time, be deluded into acting against theirown true interest. Yet now they tell us that, in all aristocraticalcommunities, the higher and more educated class will, not occasionally, but invariably, act against its own interest. Now, the only use ofproving anything, as far as we can see, is that people may believe it. To say that a man does what he believes to be against his happiness isa contradiction in terms. If, therefore, government and laws are to beconstituted on the supposition on which Mr Mill's Essay is founded, that all individuals will, whenever they have power over others put intotheir hands, act in opposition to the general happiness, then governmentand laws must be constituted on the supposition that no individualbelieves, or ever will believe, his own happiness to be identical withthe happiness of society. That is to say, government and laws are tobe constituted on the supposition that no human being will everbe satisfied by Mr Bentham's proof of his "greatest happinessprinciple, "--a supposition which may be true enough, but which sayslittle, we think, for the principle in question. 

But where has this principle been demonstrated? We are curious, weconfess, to see this demonstration which is to change the face of theworld and yet is to convince nobody. The most amusing circumstance isthat the Westminster Reviewer himself does not seem to know whetherthe principle has been demonstrated or not. "Mr Bentham, " he says, "hasdemonstrated it, or at all events has laid such foundations that thereis no trouble in demonstrating it. " Surely it is rather strange thatsuch a matter should be left in doubt. The Reviewer proposed, in hisformer article, a slight verbal emendation in the statement of theprinciple; he then announced that the principle had received its lastimprovement; and gloried in the circumstance that the Westminster Reviewhad been selected as the organ of that improvement. Did it never occurto him that one slight improvement to a doctrine is to prove it?

Mr Bentham has not demonstrated the "greatest happiness principle, " asnow stated. He is far too wise a man to think of demonstrating anysuch thing. In those sections of his "Introduction to the Principles ofMorals and Legislation", to which the Reviewer refers us in his note, there is not a word of the kind. Mr Bentham says, most truly, that thereare no occasions in which a man has not SOME motives for consulting thehappiness of other men; and he proceeds to set forth what those motivesare--sympathy on all occasions, and the love of reputation on mostoccasions. This is the very doctrine which we have been maintainingagainst Mr Mill and the Westminster Reviewer. The principal charge whichwe brought against Mr Mill was, that those motives to which Mr Benthamascribes so much influence were quite left out of consideration in histheory. The Westminster Reviewer, in the very article now before us, abuses us for saying, in the spirit, and almost in the words of MrBentham, that "there is a certain check to the rapacity and crueltyof men in their desire of the good opinion of others. " But does thisprinciple, in which we fully agree with Mr Bentham, go the length ofthe new "greatest happiness principle?" The question is, not whether menhave SOME motives for promoting the greatest happiness, but whetherthe STRONGER motives be those which impel them to promote the greatesthappiness. That this would always be the case if men knew their ownworldly interests is the assertion of the Reviewer. As he expresses somedoubt whether Mr Bentham has demonstrated this or not, we would advisehim to set the point at rest by giving his own demonstration. 

The Reviewer has not attempted to give a general confirmation of the"greatest happiness principle;" but he has tried to prove that it holdsgood in one or two particular cases. And even in those particular caseshe has utterly failed. A man, says he, who calculated the chances fairlywould perceive that it would be for his greatest happiness to abstainfrom stealing; for a thief runs a greater risk of being hanged than anhonest man. 

It would have been wise, we think, in the Westminster Reviewer, beforehe entered on a discussion of this sort, to settle in what humanhappiness consists. Each of the ancient sects of philosophy held sometenet on this subject which served for a distinguishing badge. Thesummum bonum of the Utilitarians, as far as we can judge from thepassage which we are now considering, is the not being hanged. 

That it is an unpleasant thing to be hanged, we most willingly concedeto our brother. But that the whole question of happiness or miseryresolves itself into this single point, we cannot so easily admit. Wemust look at the thing purchased as well as the price paid for it. Athief, assuredly, runs a greater risk of being hanged than a labourer;and so an officer in the army runs a greater risk of being shot than abanker's clerk; and a governor of India runs a greater risk of dying ofcholera than a lord of the bedchamber. But does it therefore follow thatevery man, whatever his habits or feelings may be, would, if he knewhis own happiness, become a clerk rather than a cornet, or goldstick inwaiting rather than governor of India?

Nothing can be more absurd than to suppose, like the WestminsterReviewer, that thieves steal only because they do not calculate thechances of being hanged as correctly as honest men. It never seems tohave occurred to him as possible that a man may so greatly prefer thelife of a thief to the life of a labourer that he may determine to bravethe risk of detection and punishment, though he may even think that riskgreater than it really is. And how, on Utilitarian principles, is sucha man to be convinced that he is in the wrong? "You will be foundout. "--"Undoubtedly. "--"You will be hanged within two years. "--"I expectto be hanged within one year. "--"Then why do you pursue this lawlessmode of life?"--"Because I would rather live for one year with plentyof money, dressed like a gentleman, eating and drinking of the best, frequenting public places, and visiting a dashing mistress, than breakstones on the road, or sit down to the loom, with the certainty ofattaining a good old age. It is my humour. Are you answered?"

A king, says the Reviewer again, would govern well, if he were wise, for fear of provoking his subjects to insurrection. Therefore the truehappiness of a king is identical with the greatest happiness of society. Tell Charles II. That, if he will be constant to his queen, soberat table, regular at prayers, frugal in his expenses, active in thetransaction of business, if he will drive the herd of slaves, buffoons, and procurers from Whitehall, and make the happiness of his people therule of his conduct, he will have a much greater chance of reigningin comfort to an advanced age; that his profusion and tyranny haveexasperated his subjects, and may, perhaps, bring him to an end asterrible as his father's. He might answer, that he saw the danger, butthat life was not worth having without ease and vicious pleasures. Andwhat has our philosopher to say? Does he not see that it is no morepossible to reason a man out of liking a short life and a merry one morethan a long life and a dull one than to reason a Greenlander out of histrain oil? We may say that the tastes of the thief and the tyrant differfrom ours; but what right have we to say, looking at this world alone, that they do not pursue their greatest happiness very judiciously?

It is the grossest ignorance of human nature to suppose that another mancalculates the chances differently from us, merely because he does what, in his place, we should not do. Every man has tastes and propensities, which he is disposed to gratify at a risk and expense which people ofdifferent temperaments and habits think extravagant. "Why, " says Horace, "does one brother like to lounge in the forum, to play in the Campus, and to anoint himself in the baths, so well, that he would not puthimself out of his way for all the wealth of the richest plantations ofthe East; while the other toils from sunrise to sunset for the purposeof increasing his fortune?" Horace attributes the diversity to theinfluence of the Genius and the natal star: and eighteen hundredyears have taught us only to disguise our ignorance beneath a morephilosophical language. 

We think, therefore, that the Westminster Reviewer, even if we admit hiscalculation of the chances to be right, does not make out his case. Buthe appears to us to miscalculate chances more grossly than any personwho ever acted or speculated in this world. "It is for the happiness, "says he, "of a member of the House of Commons to govern well; for henever can tell that he is not close on the moment when misgovernmentwill be terribly punished: if he was sure that he should be as lucky ashis predecessors, it might be for his happiness to misgovern; but he isnot sure. " Certainly a member of Parliament is not sure that he shallnot be torn in pieces by a mob, or guillotined by a revolutionarytribunal for his opposition to reform. Nor is the Westminster Reviewersure that he shall not be hanged for writing in favour of universalsuffrage. We may have democratical massacres. We may also havearistocratical proscriptions. It is not very likely, thank God, that weshould see either. But the radical, we think, runs as much danger as thearistocrat. As to our friend the Westminster Reviewer, he, it mustbe owned, has as good a right as any man on his side, "Antoni gladioscontemnere. " But take the man whose votes, ever since he has sate inParliament, have been the most uniformly bad, and oppose him to the manwhose votes have been the most uniformly good. The Westminster Reviewerwould probably select Mr Sadler and Mr Hume. Now, does any rational manthink, --will the Westminster Reviewer himself say, --that Mr Sadler runsmore risk of coming to a miserable end on account of his public conductthan Mr Hume? Mr Sadler does not know that he is not close on the momentwhen he will be made an example of; for Mr Sadler knows, if possible, less about the future than about the past. But he has no more reason toexpect that he shall be made an example of than to expect that Londonwill be swallowed up by an earthquake next spring; and it would be asfoolish in him to act on the former supposition as on the latter. Thereis a risk; for there is a risk of everything which does not involve acontradiction; but it is a risk from which no man in his wits would givea shilling to be insured. Yet our Westminster Reviewer tells us thatthis risk alone, apart from all considerations of religion, honouror benevolence, would, as a matter of mere calculation, induce a wisemember of the House of Commons to refuse any emoluments which might beoffered him as the price of his support to pernicious measures. 

We have hitherto been examining cases proposed by our opponent. It isnow our turn to propose one; and we beg that he will spare no wisdom insolving it. 

A thief is condemned to be hanged. On the eve of the day fixed for theexecution a turnkey enters his cell and tells him that all is safe, that he has only to slip out, that his friends are waiting in theneighbourhood with disguises, and that a passage is taken for him inan American packet. Now, it is clearly for the greatest happiness ofsociety that the thief should be hanged and the corrupt turnkey exposedand punished. Will the Westminster Reviewer tell us that it is for thegreatest happiness of the thief to summon the head jailer and tell thewhole story? Now, either it is for the greatest happiness of a thiefto be hanged or it is not. If it is, then the argument, by which theWestminster Reviewer attempts to prove that men do not promote their ownhappiness by thieving, falls to the ground. If it is not, then there aremen whose greatest happiness is at variance with the greatest happinessof the community. 

To sum up our arguments shortly, we say that the "greatest happinessprinciple, " as now stated, is diametrically opposed to the principlestated in the Westminster Review three months ago. 

We say that, if the "greatest happiness principle, " as now stated, besound, Mr Mill's Essay, and all other works concerning Government which, like that Essay, proceed on the supposition that individuals may have aninterest opposed to the greatest happiness of society, are fundamentallyerroneous. 

We say that those who hold this principle to be sound must be preparedto maintain, either that monarchs and aristocracies may be trusted togovern the community, or else that men cannot be trusted to follow theirown interest when that interest is demonstrated to them. 

We say that, if men cannot be trusted to follow their own interestwhen that interest has been demonstrated to them, then the Utilitarianarguments in favour of universal suffrage are good for nothing. 

We say that the "greatest happiness principle" has not been proved;that it cannot be generally proved; that even in the particular casesselected by the Reviewer it is not clear that the principle is true;and that many cases might be stated in which the common sense of mankindwould at once pronounce it to be false. 

We now leave the Westminster Reviewer to alter and amend his"magnificent principle" as he thinks best. Unlimited, it is false. Properly limited, it will be barren. The "greatest happiness principle"of the 1st of July, as far as we could discern its meaning througha cloud of rodomontade, was an idle truism. The "greatest happinessprinciple" of the 1st of October is, in the phrase of the Americannewspapers, "important if true. " But unhappily it is not true. It is notour business to conjecture what new maxim is to make the bones of sagesand patriots stir on the 1st of December. We can only say that, unlessit be something infinitely more ingenious than its two predecessors, weshall leave it unmolested. The Westminster Reviewer may, if he pleases, indulge himself like Sultan Schahriar with espousing a rapid successionof virgin theories. But we must beg to be excused from playing the partof the vizier who regularly attended on the day after the wedding tostrangle the new Sultana. 

The Westminster Reviewer charges us with urging it as an objection tothe "greatest happiness principle" that "it is included in the Christianmorality. " This is a mere fiction of his own. We never attacked themorality of the Gospel. We blamed the Utilitarians for claiming thecredit of a discovery, when they had merely stolen that morality, andspoiled it in the stealing. They have taken the precept of Christ andleft the motive; and they demand the praise of a most wonderful andbeneficial invention, when all that they have done has been to makea most useful maxim useless by separating it from its sanction. Onreligious principles it is true that every individual will best promotehis own happiness by promoting the happiness of others. But if religiousconsiderations be left out of the question it is not true. If we do notreason on the supposition of a future state, where is the motive? If wedo reason on that supposition, where is the discovery?

The Westminster Reviewer tells us that "we wish to see the science ofGovernment unsettled because we see no prospect of a settlement whichaccords with our interests. " His angry eagerness to have questionssettled resembles that of a judge in one of Dryden's plays--theAmphitryon, we think--who wishes to decide a cause after hearing onlyone party, and, when he has been at last compelled to listen to thestatement of the defendant, flies into a passion, and exclaims, "Therenow, sir! See what you have done. The case was quite clear a minute ago;and you must come and puzzle it!" He is the zealot of a sect. We aresearchers after truth. He wishes to have the question settled. We wishto have it sifted first. The querulous manner in which we have beenblamed for attacking Mr Mill's system, and propounding no system ofour own, reminds us of the horror with which that shallow dogmatist, Epicurus, the worst parts of whose nonsense the Utilitarians haveattempted to revive, shrank from the keen and searching scepticism ofthe second Academy. 

It is not our fault that an experimental science of vast extent does notadmit of being settled by a short demonstration; that the subtiltyof nature, in the moral as in the physical world, triumphs over thesubtilty of syllogism. The quack, who declares on affidavit that, byusing his pills and attending to his printed directions, hundreds whohad been dismissed incurable from the hospitals have renewed their youthlike the eagles, may, perhaps, think that Sir Henry Halford, whenhe feels the pulses of patients, inquires about their symptoms, andprescribes a different remedy to each, is unsettling the science ofmedicine for the sake of a fee. 

If, in the course of this controversy, we have refrained from expressingany opinion respecting the political institutions of England, it is notbecause we have not an opinion, or because we shrink from avowingit. The Utilitarians, indeed, conscious that their boasted theory ofgovernment would not bear investigation, were desirous to turn thedispute about Mr Mill's Essay into a dispute about the Whig party, rotten boroughs, unpaid magistrates, and ex-officio informations. Whenwe blamed them for talking nonsense, they cried out that they wereinsulted for being reformers, --just as poor Ancient Pistol swore thatthe scars which he had received from the cudgel of Fluellen were gotin the Gallia wars. We, however, did not think it desirable to mix uppolitical questions, about which the public mind is violently agitated, with a great problem in moral philosophy. 

Our notions about Government are not, however, altogether unsettled. Wehave an opinion about parliamentary reform, though we have not arrivedat that opinion by the royal road which Mr Mill has opened for theexplorers of political science. As we are taking leave, probably for thelast time, of this controversy, we will state very concisely what ourdoctrines are. On some future occasion we may, perhaps, explain anddefend them at length. 

Our fervent wish, and we will add our sanguine hope, is that we maysee such a reform of the House of Commons as may render its votesthe express image of the opinion of the middle orders of Britain. Apecuniary qualification we think absolutely necessary; and in settlingits amount, our object would be to draw the line in such a manner thatevery decent farmer and shopkeeper might possess the elective franchise. We should wish to see an end put to all the advantages which particularforms of property possess over other forms, and particular portions ofproperty over other equal portions. And this would content us. Such areform would, according to Mr Mill, establish an aristocracy of wealth, and leave the community without protection and exposed to all the evilsof unbridled power. Most willingly would we stake the whole controversybetween us on the success of the experiment which we propose. 

*****

SADLER'S LAW OF POPULATION. (July 1830. )

 "The Law of Population; a Treatise in Six Books, in Disproof of the Superfecundity of Human Beings, and developing the real Principle of their Increase". By Michael Thomas Sadler, M. P. 2 volumes 8vo. London: 1830. 

We did not expect a good book from Mr Sadler: and it is well that we didnot; for he has given us a very bad one. The matter of his treatise isextraordinary; the manner more extraordinary still. His arrangement isconfused, his repetitions endless, his style everything which it oughtnot to be. Instead of saying what he has to say with the perspicuity, the precision, and the simplicity in which consists the eloquence properto scientific writing, he indulges without measure in vague, bombasticdeclamation, made up of those fine things which boys of fifteen admire, and which everybody, who is not destined to be a boy all his life, weedsvigorously out of his compositions after five-and-twenty. That portionof his two thick volumes which is not made up of statistical tables, consists principally of ejaculations, apostrophes, metaphors, similes, --all the worst of their respective kinds. His thoughts aredressed up in this shabby finery with so much profusion and so littlediscrimination, that they remind us of a company of wretched strollingplayers, who have huddled on suits of ragged and faded tinsel, takenfrom a common wardrobe, and fitting neither their persons nor theirparts; and who then exhibit themselves to the laughing and pityingspectators, in a state of strutting, ranting, painted, gilded beggary. "Oh, rare Daniels!" "Political economist, go and do thou likewise!""Hear, ye political economists and anti-populationists!" "Population, ifnot proscribed and worried down by the Cerberean dogs of this wretchedand cruel system, really does press against the level of the means ofsubsistence, and still elevating that level, it continues thus tourge society through advancing stages, till at length the strongand resistless hand of necessity presses the secret spring of humanprosperity, and the portals of Providence fly open, and disclose to theenraptured gaze the promised land of contented and rewarded labour. "These are specimens, taken at random, of Mr Sadler's eloquence. We couldeasily multiply them; but our readers, we fear, are already inclined tocry for mercy. 

Much blank verse and much rhyme is also scattered through these volumes, sometimes rightly quoted, sometimes wrongly, --sometimes good, sometimesinsufferable, --sometimes taken from Shakspeare, and sometimes, for aughtwe know, Mr Sadler's own. "Let man, " cries the philosopher, "take heedhow he rashly violates his trust;" and thereupon he breaks forth intosinging as follows:

 "What myriads wait in destiny's dark womb, Doubtful of life or an eternal tomb! 'Tis his to blot them from the book of fate, Or, like a second Deity, create; To dry the stream of being in its source, Or bid it, widening, win its restless course; While, earth and heaven replenishing, the flood Rolls to its Ocean fount, and rests in God. "

If these lines are not Mr Sadler's, we heartily beg his pardon for oursuspicion--a suspicion which, we acknowledge, ought not to be lightlyentertained of any human being. We can only say that we never met withthem before, and that we do not much care how long it may be before wemeet with them, or with any others like them, again. 

The spirit of this work is as bad as its style. We never met with a bookwhich so strongly indicated that the writer was in a good humour withhimself, and in a bad humour with everybody else; which contained somuch of that kind of reproach which is vulgarly said to be no slander, and of that kind of praise which is vulgarly said to be no commendation. Mr Malthus is attacked in language which it would be scarcely decent toemploy respecting Titus Oates. "Atrocious, " "execrable, " "blasphemous, "and other epithets of the same kind, are poured forth against that able, excellent, and honourable man, with a profusion which in the early partof the work excites indignation, but after the first hundred pages, produces mere weariness and nausea. In the preface, Mr Sadler excuseshimself on the plea of haste. Two-thirds of his book, he tells us, werewritten in a few months. If any terms have escaped him which can beconstrued into personal disrespect, he shall deeply regret that he hadnot more time to revise them. We must inform him that the tone of hisbook required a very different apology; and that a quarter of a year, though it is a short time for a man to be engaged in writing a book, isa very long time for a man to be in a passion. 

The imputation of being in a passion Mr Sadler will not disclaim. Hisis a theme, he tells us, on which "it were impious to be calm;" and heboasts that, "instead of conforming to the candour of the present age, he has imitated the honesty of preceding ones, in expressing himselfwith the utmost plainness and freedom throughout. " If Mr Sadler reallywishes that the controversy about his new principle of population shouldbe carried on with all the license of the seventeenth century, we canhave no personal objections. We are quite as little afraid of a contestin which quarter shall be neither given nor taken as he can be. But wewould advise him seriously to consider, before he publishes the promisedcontinuation of his work, whether he be not one of that class of writerswho stand peculiarly in need of the candour which he insults, and whowould have most to fear from that unsparing severity which he practisesand recommends. 

There is only one excuse for the extreme acrimony with which this bookis written; and that excuse is but a bad one. Mr Sadler imagines thatthe theory of Mr Malthus is inconsistent with Christianity, and evenwith the purer forms of Deism. Now, even had this been the case, agreater degree of mildness and self-command than Mr Sadler has shownwould have been becoming in a writer who had undertaken to defend thereligion of charity. But, in fact, the imputation which has been thrownon Mr Malthus and his followers is so absurd as scarcely to deservean answer. As it appears, however, in almost every page of Mr Sadler'sbook, we will say a few words respecting it. 

Mr Sadler describes Mr Malthus's principle in the following words:--

"It pronounces that there exists an evil in the principle of population;an evil, not accidental, but inherent; not of occasional occurrence, but in perpetual operation; not light, transient, or mitigated, butproductive of miseries, compared with which all those inflicted by humaninstitutions, that is to say, by the weakness and wickedness of man, however instigated, are 'light;' an evil, finally, for which there isno remedy save one, which had been long overlooked, and which is nowenunciated in terms which evince anything rather than confidence. It isa principle, moreover, pre-eminently bold, as well as 'clear. ' With apresumption, to call it by no fitter name, of which it may be doubtedwhether literature, heathen or Christian, furnishes a parallel, itprofesses to trace this supposed evil to its source, 'the laws ofnature, which are those of God;' thereby implying, and indeed asserting, that the law by which the Deity multiplies his offspring, and that bywhich he makes provision for their sustentation, are different, and, indeed, irreconcilable. "

"This theory, " he adds, "in the plain apprehension of the many, lowersthe character of the Deity in that attribute, which, as Rousseau haswell observed, is the most essential to him, his goodness; or otherwise, impugns his wisdom. "

Now nothing is more certain than that there is physical and moralevil in the world. Whoever, therefore, believes, as we do mostfirmly believe, in the goodness of God, must believe that there isno incompatibility between the goodness of God and the existenceof physical and moral evil. If, then, the goodness of God be notincompatible with the existence of physical and moral evil, on whatgrounds does Mr Sadler maintain that the goodness of God is incompatiblewith the law of population laid down by Mr Malthus?

Is there any difference between the particular form of evil which wouldbe produced by over-population, and other forms of evil which we knowto exist in the world? It is, says Mr Sadler, not a light or transientevil, but a great and permanent evil. What then? The question of theorigin of evil is a question of ay or no, --not a question of moreor less. If any explanation can be found by which the slightestinconvenience ever sustained by any sentient being can be reconciledwith the divine attribute of benevolence, that explanation will equallyapply to the most dreadful and extensive calamities that can everafflict the human race. The difficulty arises from an apparentcontradiction in terms; and that difficulty is as complete in the caseof a headache which lasts for an hour as in the case of a pestilencewhich unpeoples an empire, --in the case of the gust which makes usshiver for a moment as in the case of the hurricane in which an Armadais cast away. 

It is, according to Mr Sadler, an instance of presumption unparalleledin literature, heathen or Christian, to trace an evil to "the laws ofnature, which are those of God, " as its source. Is not hydrophobiaan evil? And is it not a law of nature that hydrophobia should becommunicated by the bite of a mad dog? Is not malaria an evil? And is itnot a law of nature that in particular situations the human frame shouldbe liable to malaria? We know that there is evil in the world. If it isnot to be traced to the laws of nature, how did it come into the world?Is it supernatural? And, if we suppose it to be supernatural, is not thedifficulty of reconciling it with the divine attributes as great as ifwe suppose it to be natural? Or, rather, what do the words natural andsupernatural mean when applied to the operations of the Supreme Mind?

Mr Sadler has attempted, in another part of his work, to meet theseobvious arguments, by a distinction without a difference. 

"The scourges of human existence, as necessary regulators of the numbersof mankind, it is also agreed by some, are not inconsistent with thewisdom or benevolence of the Governor of the universe; though such thinkthat it is a mere after-concern to 'reconcile the undeniable state ofthe fact to the attributes we assign to the Deity. ' 'The purpose of theearthquake, ' say they, 'the hurricane, the drought, or the famine, bywhich thousands, and sometimes almost millions, of the human race, areat once overwhelmed, or left the victims of lingering want, is certainlyinscrutable. ' How singular is it that a sophism like this, so false, asa mere illustration, should pass for an argument, as it has long done!The principle of population is declared to be naturally productive ofevils to mankind, and as having that constant and manifest tendency toincrease their numbers beyond the means of their subsistence, which hasproduced the unhappy and disgusting consequences so often enumerated. This is, then, its universal tendency or rule. But is there in Naturethe same constant tendency to these earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, and famines by which so many myriads, if not millions, are overwhelmedor reduced at once to ruin? No; these awful events are strangeexceptions to the ordinary course of things; their visitations arepartial, and they occur at distant intervals of time. While Religion hasassigned to them a very solemn office, Philosophy readily refers them tothose great and benevolent principles of Nature by which the universeis regulated. But were there a constantly operating tendency to thesecalamitous occurrences; did we feel the earth beneath us tremulous, andgiving ceaseless and certain tokens of the coming catastrophe ofNature; were the hurricane heard mustering its devastating powers, andperpetually muttering around us; were the skies 'like brass, ' withouta cloud to produce one genial drop to refresh the thirsty earth, andfamine, consequently, visibly on the approach; I say, would such astate of things, as resulting from the constant laws of Nature, be'reconcilable with the attributes we assign to the Deity, ' or with anyattributes which in these inventive days could be assigned to him, soas to represent him as anything but the tormenter, rather than the kindbenefactor, of his creatures? Life, in such a condition, would be likethe unceasingly threatened and miserable existence of Damocles at thetable of Dionysius, and the tyrant himself the worthy image of the Deityof the anti-populationists. "

Surely this is wretched trifling. Is it on the number of bad harvests, or of volcanic eruptions, that this great question depends? Mr Sadler'spiety, it seems, would be proof against one rainy summer, but wouldbe overcome by three or four in succession. On the coasts of theMediterranean, where earthquakes are rare, he would be an optimist. South America would make him a sceptic, and Java a decided Manichean. To say that religion assigns a solemn office to these visitations isnothing to the purpose. Why was man so constituted as to need suchwarnings? It is equally unmeaning to say that philosophy refers theseevents to benevolent general laws of nature. In so far as the laws ofnature produce evil, they are clearly not benevolent. They may producemuch good. But why is this good mixed with evil? The most subtle andpowerful intellects have been labouring for centuries to solve thesedifficulties. The true solution, we are inclined to think, is that whichhas been rather suggested, than developed, by Paley and Butler. Butthere is not one solution which will not apply quite as well to theevils of over-population as to any other evil. Many excellent peoplethink that it is presumptuous to meddle with such high questions at all, and that, though there doubtless is an explanation, our faculties arenot sufficiently enlarged to comprehend that explanation. This mode ofgetting rid of the difficulty, again, will apply quite as well to theevils of over-population as to any other evils. We are sure that thosewho humbly confess their inability to expound the great enigma act morerationally and more decorously than Mr Sadler, who tells us, with theutmost confidence, which are the means and which the ends, --which theexceptions and which the rules, in the government of the universe;--whoconsents to bear a little evil without denying the divine benevolence, but distinctly announces that a certain quantity of dry weather orstormy weather would force him to regard the Deity as the tyrant of hiscreatures. 

The great discovery by which Mr Sadler has, as he conceives, vindicatedthe ways of Providence is enounced with all the pomp of capital letters. We must particularly beg that our readers will peruse it with attention. 

"No one fact relative to the human species is more clearly ascertained, whether by general observation or actual proof, than that theirfecundity varies in different communities and countries. The principlewhich effects this variation, without the necessity of those crueland unnatural expedients so frequently adverted to, constitutes what Ipresume to call THE LAW OF POPULATION; and that law may be thus brieflyenunciated:--

"THE PROLIFICNESS OF HUMAN BEINGS, OTHERWISE SIMILARLY CIRCUMSTANCED, VARIES INVERSELY AS THEIR NUMBERS. 

"The preceding definition may be thus amplified and explained. Premising, as a mere truism, that marriages under precisely similarcircumstances will, on the average, be equally fruitful everywhere, I proceed to state, first, that the prolificness of a given numberof marriages will, all other circumstances being the same, varyin proportion to the condensation of the population, so that thatprolificness shall be greatest where the numbers on an equal space arethe fewest, and, on the contrary, the smallest where those numbers arethe largest. "

Mr Sadler, at setting out, abuses Mr Malthus for enouncing his theoryin terms taken from the exact sciences. "Applied to the mensuration ofhuman fecundity, " he tells us, "the most fallacious of all things isgeometrical demonstration;" and he again informs us that those "act anirrational and irrelevant part who affect to measure the mighty depthof God's mercies by their arithmetic, and to demonstrate, by theirgeometrical ratios, that it is inadequate to receive and contain theefflux of that fountain of life which is in Him. "

It appears, however, that it is not to the use of mathematical words, but only to the use of those words in their right senses that Mr Sadlerobjects. The law of inverse variation, or inverse proportion, is as mucha part of mathematical science as the law of geometric progression. Theonly difference in this respect between Mr Malthus and Mr Sadler is, that Mr Malthus knows what is meant by geometric progression, andthat Mr Sadler has not the faintest notion of what is meant by inversevariation. Had he understood the proposition which he has enounced withso much pomp, its ludicrous absurdity must at once have flashed on hismind. 

Let it be supposed that there is a tract in the back settlements ofAmerica, or in New South Wales, equal in size to London, with only asingle couple, a man and his wife, living upon it. The population ofLondon, with its immediate suburbs, is now probably about a million anda half. The average fecundity of a marriage in London is, as Mr Sadlertells us 2. 35. How many children will the woman in the back settlementsbear according to Mr Sadler's theory? The solution of the problem iseasy. As the population in this tract in the back settlements is tothe population of London, so will be the number of children born from amarriage in London to the number of children born from the marriage ofthis couple in the back settlements. That is to say--

 2 : 1, 500, 000 :: 2. 35 : 1, 762, 500. 

The lady will have 1, 762, 500 children: a large "efflux of the fountainof life, " to borrow Mr Sadler's sonorous rhetoric, as the mostphiloprogenitive parent could possibly desire. 

But let us, instead of putting cases of our own, look at some of thosewhich Mr Sadler has brought forward in support of his theory. Thefollowing table, he tells us, exhibits a striking proof of the truth ofhis main position. It seems to us to prove only that Mr Sadler does notknow what inverse proportion means. 

 Countries Inhabitants on a Children to a Square Mile, about Marriage

 Cape of Good Hope 1 5. 48 North America 4 5. 22 Russia in Europe 23 4. 94 Denmark 73 4. 89 Prussia 100 4. 70 France 140 4. 22 England 160 3. 66

Is 1 to 160 as 3. 66 to 5. 48? If Mr Sadler's principle were just, thenumber of children produced by a marriage at the Cape would be, not5. 48, but very near 600. Or take America and France. Is 4 to 140 as4. 22 to 5. 22? The number of births to a marriage in North America ought, according to this proportion, to be about 150. 

Mr Sadler states the law of population in England thus:--

"Where the inhabitants are found to be on the square mile, From To Counties Number of births to 100 marriages

 50 100 2 420 100 150 9 396 150 200 16 390 200 250 4 388 250 300 5 378 300 350 3 353 500 600 2 331 4000 and upwards 1 246

"Now, I think it quite reasonable to conclude, that, were there notanother document in existence relative to this subject, the facts thusdeduced from the census of England are fully sufficient to demonstratethe position, that the fecundity of human beings varies inversely astheir numbers. How, I ask, can it be evaded?"

What, we ask, is there to evade? Is 246 to 420 as 50 to 4000? Is 331 to396 as 100 to 500? If the law propounded by Mr Sadler were correct, thebirths to a hundred marriages in the least populous part of England, would be 246 x 4000 / 50, that is 19, 680, --nearly two hundred childrento every mother. But we will not carry on these calculations. Theabsurdity of Mr Sadler's proposition is so palpable that it isunnecessary to select particular instances. Let us see what are theextremes of population and fecundity in well-known countries. The spacewhich Mr Sadler generally takes is a square mile. The population at theCape of Good Hope is, according to him, one to the square mile. Thatof London is two hundred thousand to the square mile. The number ofchildren at the Cape, Mr Sadler informs us, is 5. 48 to a marriage. InLondon, he states it at 2. 35 to a marriage. Now how can that of whichall the variations lie between 2. 35 and 5. 48 vary, either directly orinversely, as that which admits of all the variations between one andtwo hundred thousand? Mr Sadler evidently does not know the meaning ofthe word proportion. A million is a larger quantity than ten. A hundredis a larger quantity than five. Mr Sadler thinks, therefore, that thereis no impropriety in saying that a hundred is to five as a million is toten, or in the inverse ratio of ten to a million. He proposes to provethat the fecundity of marriages varies in inverse proportion to thedensity of the population. But all that he attempts to prove is that, while the population increases from one to a hundred and sixty on thesquare mile, the fecundity will diminish from 5. 48 to 3. 66; and thatagain, while the population increases from one hundred and sixty to twohundred thousand on the square mile, the fecundity will diminish from3. 66 to 2. 35. 

The proposition which Mr Sadler enounces, without understanding thewords which he uses, would indeed, if it could be proved, set us at easeas to the dangers of over-population. But it is, as we have shown, aproposition so grossly absurd that it is difficult for any man to keephis countenance while he repeats it. The utmost that Mr Sadler hasever attempted to prove is this, --that the fecundity of the humanrace diminishes as population becomes more condensed, --but that thediminution of fecundity bears a very small ratio to the increaseof population, --so that, while the population on a square mile ismultiplied two hundred-thousand-fold, the fecundity decreases by littlemore than one half. 

Does this principle vindicate the honour of God? Does it hold out anynew hope or comfort to man? Not at all. We pledge ourselves toshow, with the utmost strictness of reasoning, from Mr Sadler's ownprinciples, and from facts of the most notorious description, that everyconsequence which follows from the law of geometrical progression, laiddown by Mr Malthus, will follow from the law, miscalled a law of inversevariation, which has been laid down by Mr Sadler. 

London is the most thickly peopled spot of its size in the known world. Therefore the fecundity of the population of London must, accordingto Mr Sadler, be less than the fecundity of human beings living onany other spot of equal size. Mr Sadler tells us, that "the ratiosof mortality are influenced by the different degrees in which thepopulation is condensated; and that, other circumstances being similar, the relative number of deaths in a thinly-populated, or countrydistrict, is less than that which takes place in towns, and in towns ofa moderate size less again than that which exists in large and populouscities. " Therefore the mortality in London must, according to him, begreater than in other places. But, though, according to Mr Sadler, thefecundity is less in London than elsewhere, and though the mortality isgreater there than elsewhere, we find that even in London the number ofbirths greatly exceeds the number of deaths. During the ten years whichended with 1820, there were fifty thousand more baptisms than burialswithin the bills of mortality. It follows, therefore, that, even withinLondon itself, an increase of the population is taking place by internalpropagation. 

Now, if the population of a place in which the fecundity is less andthe mortality greater than in other places still goes on increasingby propagation, it follows that in other places the population willincrease, and increase still faster. There is clearly nothing in MrSadler's boasted law of fecundity which will keep the population frommultiplying till the whole earth is as thick with human beings as StGiles's parish. If Mr Sadler denies this, he must hold that, in placesless thickly peopled than London, marriages may be less fruitful thanin London, which is directly contrary to his own principles; or that inplaces less thickly peopled than London, and similarly situated, peoplewill die faster than in London, which is again directly contrary to hisown principles. Now, if it follows, as it clearly does follow, from MrSadler's own doctrines, that the human race might be stowed togetherby three or four hundred to the acre, and might still, as far as theprinciple of propagation is concerned, go on increasing, what advantage, in a religious or moral point of view, has his theory over that ofMr Malthus? The principle of Mr Malthus, says Mr Sadler, leads toconsequences of the most frightful description. Be it so. But do notall these consequences spring equally from his own principle? Revealedreligion condemns Mr Malthus. Be it so. But Mr Sadler must share in thereproach of heresy. The theory of Mr Malthus represents the Deity as aDionysius hanging the sword over the heads of his trembling slaves. Beit so. But under what rhetorical figure are we to represent the Deity ofMr Sadler?

A man who wishes to serve the cause of religion ought to hesitate longbefore he stakes the truth of religion on the event of a controversyrespecting facts in the physical world. For a time he may succeed inmaking a theory which he dislikes unpopular by persuading the publicthat it contradicts the Scriptures and is inconsistent with theattributes of the Deity. But, if at last an overwhelming force ofevidence proves this maligned theory to be true, what is the effect ofthe arguments by which the objector has attempted to prove that it isirreconcilable with natural and revealed religion? Merely this, to makemen infidels. Like the Israelites, in their battle with the Philistines, he has presumptuously and without warrant brought down the ark of Godinto the camp as a means of ensuring victory:--and the consequence ofthis profanation is that, when the battle is lost, the ark is taken. 

In every age the Church has been cautioned against this fatal andimpious rashness by its most illustrious members, --by the fervidAugustin, by the subtle Aquinas, by the all-accomplished Pascal. Thewarning has been given in vain. That close alliance which, underthe disguise of the most deadly enmity, has always subsisted betweenfanaticism and atheism is still unbroken. At one time, the cry was, --"Ifyou hold that the earth moves round the sun, you deny the truth of theBible. " Popes, conclaves, and religious orders, rose up against theCopernican heresy. But, as Pascal said, they could not prevent theearth from moving, or themselves from moving along with it. One thing, however, they could do, and they did. They could teach numbers toconsider the Bible as a collection of old women's stories which theprogress of civilisation and knowledge was refuting one by one. Theyhad attempted to show that the Ptolemaic system was as much a part ofChristianity as the resurrection of the dead. Was it strange, then, thatwhen the Ptolemaic system became an object of ridicule to every man ofeducation in Catholic countries, the doctrine of the resurrection shouldbe in peril? In the present generation, and in our own country, theprevailing system of geology has been, with equal folly, attacked on theground that it is inconsistent with the Mosaic dates. And here we haveMr Sadler, out of his especial zeal for religion, first proving that thedoctrine of superfecundity is irreconcilable with the goodness of God, and then laying down principles, and stating facts, from which thedoctrine of superfecundity necessarily follows. This blundering pietyreminds us of the adventures of a certain missionary who went to convertthe inhabitants of Madagascar. The good father had an audience of theking, and began to instruct his majesty in the history of the human raceas given in the Scriptures. "Thus, sir, " said he, "was woman made outof the rib of man, and ever since that time a woman has had one ribmore than a man. " "Surely, father, you must be mistaken there, " said theking. "Mistaken!" said the missionary. "It is an indisputable fact. My faith upon it! My life upon it!" The good man had heard the factasserted by his nurse when he was a child, --had always considered it asa strong confirmation of the Scriptures, and fully believed it withouthaving ever thought of verifying it. The king ordered a man and woman, the leanest that could be found, to be brought before him, and desiredhis spiritual instructor to count their ribs. The father counted overand over, upward and downward, and still found the same number in both. He then cleared his throat, stammered, stuttered, and began to assurethe king that though he had committed a little error in saying that awoman had more ribs than a man, he was quite right in saying that thefirst woman was made out of the rib of the first man. "How can I tellthat?" said the king. "You come to me with a strange story which you sayis revealed to you from heaven. I have already made you confess thatone half of it is a lie: and how can you have the face to expect that Ishall believe the other half?"

We have shown that Mr Sadler's theory, if it be true, is as much atheory of superfecundity as that of Mr Malthus. But it is not true. Andfrom Mr Sadler's own tables we will prove that it is not true. 

The fecundity of the human race in England Mr Sadler rates as follows:--

"Where the inhabitants are found to be on the square mile--

 From To Counties Number of births per 100 marriages

 50 100 2 420 100 150 9 396 150 200 16 390 200 250 4 388 250 300 5 378 300 350 3 353 500 600 2 331 4000 and upwards 1 246

Having given this table, he begins, as usual, to boast and triumph. "Were there not another document on the subject in existence, " says he, "the facts thus deduced from the census of England are sufficient todemonstrate the position, that the fecundity of human beings variesinversely as their numbers. " In no case would these facts demonstratethat the fecundity of human beings varies inversely as their numbersin the right sense of the words inverse variation. But certainlythey would, "if there were no other document in existence, " appearto indicate something like what Mr Sadler means by inverse variation. Unhappily for him, however, there are other documents in existence; andhe has himself furnished us with them. We will extract another of histables:--

TABLE LXIV. 

Showing the Operation of the Law of Population in the different Hundredsof the County of Lancaster. 

(In the following table the name of the Hundred is followed in order by:

 Population on each Square Mile. Square Miles. Population in 1821, exclusive of Towns of separate Jurisdiction. Marriages from 1811 to 1821. Baptisms from 1811 to 1821. Baptisms to 100 Marriages. )

 Lonsdale : 96 : 441 : 42, 486 : 3, 651 : 16, 129 : 442 Almondness : 267 : 228 : 60, 930 : 3, 670 : 15, 228 : 415 Leyland : 354 : 126 : 44, 583 : 2, 858 : 11, 182 : 391 West Derby : 409 : 377 : 154, 040 : 24, 182 : 86, 407 : 357 Blackburn : 513 : 286 : 146, 608 : 10, 814 : 31, 463 : 291 Salford : 869 : 373 : 322, 592 : 40, 143 : 114, 941 : 286

Mr Sadler rejoices much over this table. The results, he says, havesurprised himself; and, indeed, as we shall show, they might well havedone so. 

The result of his inquiries with respect to France he presents in thefollowing table:

"In those departments where there are to each inhabitant--

 Hectares Departments Legitimate births to every 1000 marriages

 4 to 5 2 5130 3 to 4 3 4372 2 to 3 30 4250 1 to 2 44 4234 . 06 to 1 5 4146 . 06 1 2557

Then comes the shout of exaltation as regularly as the Gloria Patriat the end of a Psalm. "Is there any possibility of gainsaying theconclusions these facts force upon us; namely that the fecundity ofmarriages is regulated by the density of the population, and inverselyto it?"

Certainly these tables, taken separately, look well for Mr Sadler'stheory. He must be a bungling gamester who cannot win when he issuffered to pack the cards his own way. We must beg leave to shufflethem a little; and we will venture to promise our readers that somecurious results will follow from the operation. In nine counties ofEngland, says Mr Sadler, in which the population is from 100 to 150on the square mile, the births to 100 marriages are 396. He afterwardsexpresses some doubt as to the accuracy of the documents from which thisestimate has been formed, and rates the number of births as high as 414. Let him take his choice. We will allow him every advantage. 

In the table which we have quoted, numbered lxiv. , he tells us that inAlmondness, where the population is 267 to the square mile, there are415 births to 100 marriages. The population of Almondness is twice asthick as the population of the nine counties referred to in the othertable. Yet the number of births to a marriage is greater in Almondnessthan in those counties. 

Once more, he tells us that in three counties, in which the populationwas from 300 to 350 on the square mile, the births to 100 marriages were353. He afterwards rates them at 375. Again we say, let him take hischoice. But from his table of the population of Lancashire it appearsthat, in the hundred of Leyland, where the population is 354 to thesquare mile, the number of births to 100 marriages is 391. Here againwe have the marriages becoming more fruitful as the population becomesdenser. 

Let us now shuffle the censuses of England and France together. In twoEnglish counties which contain from 50 to 100 inhabitants on the squaremile, the births to 100 marriages are, according to Mr Sadler, 420. Butin forty-four departments of France, in which there are from one to twohecatares to each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population isfrom 125 to 250 or rather more, to the square mile, the number of birthsto 100 marriages is 423 and a fraction. 

Again, in five departments of France in which there is less than onehecatare to each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population ismore than 250 to the square mile, the number of births to 100 marriagesis 414 and a fraction. But in the four counties of England in which thepopulation is from 200 to 250 on the square mile, the number of birthsto 100 marriages is, according to one of Mr Sadler's tables, only 388, and by his very highest estimate no more than 402. 

Mr Sadler gives us a long table of all the towns of England and Ireland, which, he tells us, irrefragably demonstrates his principle. We assert, and will prove, that these tables are alone sufficient to upset hiswhole theory. 

It is very true that, in the great towns the number of births to amarriage appears to be smaller than in the less populous towns. But welearn some other facts from these tables which we should be glad to knowhow Mr Sadler will explain. We find that the fecundity in towns offewer than 3000 inhabitants is actually much greater than the averagefecundity of the kingdom, and that the fecundity in towns of between3000 and 4000 inhabitants is at least as great as the average fecundityof the kingdom. The average fecundity of a marriage in towns of fewerthan 3000 inhabitants is about four; in towns of between 3000 and 4000inhabitants it is 3. 60. Now, the average fecundity of England, when itcontained only 160 inhabitants to a square mile, and when, therefore, according to the new law of population, the fecundity must have beengreater than it now is, was only, according to Mr Sadler, 3. 66 to amarriage. To proceed, --the fecundity of a marriage in the English townsof between 4000 and 5000 inhabitants is stated at 3. 56. But, whenwe turn to Mr Sadler's table of counties, we find the fecundity of amarriage in Warwickshire and Staffordshire rated at only 3. 48, and inLancashire and Surrey at only 3. 41. 

These facts disprove Mr Sadler's principle; and the fact on which helays so much stress--that the fecundity is less in the great towns thanin the small towns--does not tend in any degree to prove his principle. There is not the least reason to believe that the population is moredense, ON A GIVEN SPACE, in London or Manchester than in a town of 4000inhabitants. But it is quite certain that the population is more densein a town of 4000 inhabitants than in Warwickshire or Lancashire. Thatthe fecundity of Manchester is less than the fecundity of Sandwich orGuildford is a circumstance which has nothing whatever to do with MrSadler's theory. But that the fecundity of Sandwich is greater than theaverage fecundity of Kent, --that the fecundity of Guildford is greaterthan the average fecundity of Surrey, --as from his own tables appears tobe the case, --these are facts utterly inconsistent with his theory. 

We need not here examine why it is that the human race is less fruitfulin great cities than in small towns or in the open country. The fact haslong been notorious. We are inclined to attribute it to the same causeswhich tend to abridge human life in great cities, --to general sicklinessand want of tone, produced by close air and sedentary employments. Thusfar, and thus far only, we agree with Mr Sadler, that, when populationis crowded together in such masses that the general health and energy ofthe frame are impaired by the condensation, and by the habits attendingon the condensation, then the fecundity of the race diminishes. But thisis evidently a check of the same class with war, pestilence, and famine. It is a check for the operation of which Mr Malthus has allowed. 

That any condensation which does not affect the general health willaffect fecundity, is not only not proved--it is disproved--by MrSadler's own tables. 

Mr Sadler passes on to Prussia, and sums up his information respectingthat country as follows:--

(In the following table numbers appear in the order: Inhabitants on aSquare Mile, German. 

 Number of Provinces. Births to 100 Marriages, 1754. Births to 100 Marriages, 1784. Births to 100 Marriages, Busching. )

 Under 1000 : 2 : 434 : 472 : 503 1000 to 2000 : 4 : 414 : 455 : 454 2000 to 3000 : 6 : 384 : 424 : 426 3000 to 4000 : 2 : 365 : 408 : 394

After the table comes the boast as usual:

"Thus is the law of population deduced from the registers of Prussiaalso: and were the argument to pause here, it is conclusive. Theresults obtained from the registers of this and the preceding countries, exhibiting, as they do most clearly, the principle of human increase, it is utterly impossible should have been the work of chance; on thecontrary, the regularity with which the facts class themselves inconformity with that principle, and the striking analogy which the wholeof them bear to each other, demonstrate equally the design of Nature, and the certainty of its accomplishment. "

We are sorry to disturb Mr Sadler's complacency. But, in our opinion, this table completely disproves his whole principle. If we read thecolumns perpendicularly, indeed, they seem to be in his favour. But howstands the case if we read horizontally? Does Mr Sadler believe that, during the thirty years which elapsed between 1754 and 1784, thepopulation of Prussia had been diminishing? No fact in history is betterascertained than that, during the long peace which followed the sevenyears' war, it increased with great rapidity. Indeed, if the fecunditywere what Mr Sadler states it to have been, it must have increased withgreat rapidity. Yet, the ratio of births to marriages is greater in 1784than in 1754, and that in every province. It is, therefore, perfectlyclear that the fecundity does not diminish whenever the density of thepopulation increases. 

We will try another of Mr Sadler's tables:

TABLE LXXXI. 

Showing the Estimated Prolificness of Marriages in England at the closeof the Seventeenth Century. 

(In the following table the name of the Place is followed in order by:

 Number of Inhabitants. One Annual Marriage, to. Number of Marriages. Children to one Marriage. Total Number of Births. 

 London : 530, 000 : 106 : 5, 000 : 4. : 20, 000 Large Towns : 870, 000 : 128 : 6, 800 : 4. 5 : 30, 000 Small Towns and Country Places : 4, 100, 000 : 141 : 29, 200 : 4. 8 : 140, 160 ------------------------------------------- : 5, 500, 000 : 134 : 41, 000 : 4. 65 : 190, 760

Standing by itself, this table, like most of the others, seems tosupport Mr Sadler's theory. But surely London, at the close of theseventeenth century, was far more thickly peopled than the kingdomof England now is. Yet the fecundity in London at the close of theseventeenth century was 4; and the average fecundity of the wholekingdom now is not more, according to Mr Sadler, than 3 1/2. Then again, the large towns in 1700 were far more thickly peopled than Westmorelandand the North Riding of Yorkshire now are. Yet the fecundity in thoselarge towns was then 4. 5. And Mr Sadler tells us that it is now only 4. 2in Westmoreland and the North Riding. 

It is scarcely necessary to say anything about the censuses ofthe Netherlands, as Mr Sadler himself confesses that there is somedifficulty in reconciling them with his theory, and helps out hisawkward explanation by supposing, quite gratuitously, as it seems to us, that the official documents are inaccurate. The argument which he hasdrawn from the United States will detain us but for a very short time. He has not told us, --perhaps he had not the means of telling us, --whatproportion the number of births in the different parts of that countrybears to the number of marriages. He shows that in the thinly peopledstates the number of children bears a greater proportion to the numberof grown-up people than in the old states; and this, he conceives, is asufficient proof that the condensation of the population is unfavourableto fecundity. We deny the inference altogether. Nothing can be moreobvious than the explanation of the phenomenon. The back settlementsare for the most part peopled by emigration from the old states; andemigrants are almost always breeders. They are almost always vigorouspeople in the prime of life. Mr Sadler himself, in another part ofhis book, in which he tries very unsuccessfully to show that therapid multiplication of the people of America is principally owing toemigration from Europe, states this fact in the plainest manner:

"Nothing is more certain, than that emigration is almost universallysupplied by 'single persons in the beginning of mature life;' nor, secondly, that such persons, as Dr Franklin long ago asserted, 'marryand raise families. '

"Nor is this all. It is not more true, that emigrants, generallyspeaking, consist of individuals in the prime of life, than that 'theyare the most active and vigorous' of that age, as Dr Seybert describesthem to be. They are, as it respects the principle at issue, a selectclass, even compared with that of their own age, generally considered. Their very object in leaving their native countries is to settle inlife, a phrase that needs no explanation; and they do so. No equalnumber of human beings, therefore, have ever given so large or rapid anincrease to a community as 'settlers' have invariably done. "

It is perfectly clear that children are more numerous in the backsettlements of America than in the maritime states, not becauseunoccupied land makes people prolific, but because the most prolificpeople go to the unoccupied land. 

Mr Sadler having, as he conceives, fully established his theory ofpopulation by statistical evidence, proceeds to prove, "that it isin unison, or rather required by the principles of physiology. " Thedifference between himself and his opponents he states as follows:--

"In pursuing this part of my subject, I must begin by reminding thereader of the difference between those who hold the superfecundity ofmankind and myself, in regard to those principles which will form thebasis of the present argument. They contend, that production precedespopulation; I, on the contrary, maintain that population precedes, andis indeed the cause of, production. They teach that man breeds up to thecapital, or in proportion to the abundance of the food, he possesses: Iassert, that he is comparatively sterile when he is wealthy, and thathe breeds in proportion to his poverty; not meaning, however, by thatpoverty, a state of privation approaching to actual starvation, any morethan, I suppose, they would contend, that extreme and culpable excessis the grand patron of population. In a word, they hold that a stateof ease and affluence is the great promoter of prolificness. I maintainthat a considerable degree of labour, and even privation, is a moreefficient cause of an increased degree of human fecundity. "

To prove this point, he quotes Aristotle, Hippocrates, Dr Short, DrGregory, Dr Perceval, M. Villermi, Lord Bacon, and Rousseau. We will notdispute about it; for it seems quite clear to us that if he succeeds inestablishing it he overturns his own theory. If men breed in proportionto their poverty, as he tells us here, --and at the same time breedin inverse proportion to their numbers, as he told us before, --itnecessarily follows that the poverty of men must be in inverseproportion to their numbers. Inverse proportion, indeed, as we haveshown, is not the phrase which expresses Mr Sadler's meaning. Tospeak more correctly, it follows, from his own positions, that, if onepopulation be thinner than another, it will also be poorer. Is this thefact? Mr Sadler tells us, in one of those tables which we have alreadyquoted, that in the United States the population is four to a squaremile, and the fecundity 5. 22 to a marriage, and that in Russia thepopulation is twenty-three to a square mile, and the fecundity 4. 94 toa marriage. Is the North American labourer poorer than the Russian boor?If not, what becomes of Mr Sadler's argument?

The most decisive proof of Mr Sadler's theory, according to him, is thatwhich he has kept for the last. It is derived from the registers of theEnglish Peerage. The peers, he says, and says truly, are the class withrespect to whom we possess the most accurate statistical information. 

"Touching their NUMBER, this has been accurately known and recorded eversince the order has existed in the country. For several centuries past, the addition to it of a single individual has been a matter of publicinterest and notoriety: this hereditary honour conferring not personaldignity merely, but important privileges, and being almost alwaysidentified with great wealth and influence. The records relating toit are kept with the most scrupulous attention, not only by heirs andexpectants, but they are appealed to by more distant connections, asconferring distinction on all who can claim such affinity. Hence thereare few disputes concerning successions to this rank, but such as goback to very remote periods. In later times, the marriages, births, anddeaths, of the nobility, have not only been registered by and known tothose personally interested, but have been published periodically, and, consequently, subject to perpetual correction and revision; while manyof the most powerful motives which can influence the human mind conspireto preserve these records from the slightest falsification. Comparedwith these, therefore, all other registers, or reports, whether of swornsearchers or others, are incorrectness itself. "

Mr Sadler goes on to tell us that the peers are a marrying class, andthat their general longevity proves them to be a healthy class. Stillpeerages often become extinct;--and from this fact he infers that theyare a sterile class. So far, says he, from increasing in geometricalprogression, they do not even keep up their numbers. "Nature interdictstheir increase. "

"Thus, " says he, "in all ages of the world, and in every nation of it, have the highest ranks of the community been the most sterile, andthe lowest the most prolific. As it respects our own country, from thelowest grade of society, the Irish peasant, to the highest, the Britishpeer, this remains a conspicuous truth; and the regulation of the degreeof fecundity conformably to this principle, through the intermediategradations of society, constitutes one of the features of the systemdeveloped in these pages. "

We take the issue which Mr Sadler has himself offered. We agree withhim, that the registers of the English Peerage are of far higherauthority than any other statistical documents. We are content thatby those registers his principle should be judged. And we meet him bypositively denying his facts. We assert that the English nobles are notonly not a sterile, but an eminently prolific, part of the community. Mr Sadler concludes that they are sterile, merely because peerages oftenbecome extinct. Is this the proper way of ascertaining the point? Isit thus that he avails himself of those registers on the accuracy andfulness of which he descants so largely? Surely his right course wouldhave been to count the marriages, and the number of births in thePeerage. This he has not done;--but we have done it. And what is theresult?

It appears from the last edition of Debrett's "Peerage", published in1828, that there were at that time 287 peers of the United Kingdom, who had been married once or oftener. The whole number of marriagescontracted by these 287 peers was 333. The number of children by thesemarriages was 1437, --more than five to a peer, --more than 4. 3 to amarriage, --more, that is to say, than the average number in thosecounties of England in which, according to Mr Sadler's own statement, the fecundity is the greatest. 

But this is not all. These marriages had not, in 1828, produced theirfull effect. Some of them had been very lately contracted. In a verylarge proportion of them there was every probability of additionalissue. To allow for this probability, we may safely add one to theaverage which we have already obtained, and rate the fecundity of anoble marriage in England at 5. 3;--higher than the fecundity which MrSadler assigns to the people of the United States. Even if we do notmake this allowance, the average fecundity of marriages of peers ishigher by one-fifth than the average fecundity of marriages throughoutthe kingdom. And this is the sterile class! This is the class which"Nature has interdicted from increasing!" The evidence to which MrSadler has himself appealed proves that his principle is false, --utterlyfalse, --wildly and extravagantly false. It proves that a class, livingduring half of every year in the most crowded population in the world, breeds faster than those who live in the country;--that the class whichenjoys the greatest degree of luxury and ease breeds faster than theclass which undergoes labour and privation. To talk a little in MrSadler's style, we must own that we are ourselves surprised at theresults which our examination of the peerage has brought out. Wecertainly should have thought that the habits of fashionable life, andlong residence even in the most airy parts of so great a city as London, would have been more unfavourable to the fecundity of the higher ordersthan they appear to be. 

Peerages, it is true, often become extinct. But it is quite clear, fromwhat we have stated, that this is not because peeresses are barren. There is no difficulty in discovering what the causes really are. In thefirst place, most of the titles of our nobles are limited to heirs male;so that, though the average fecundity of a noble marriage is upwardsof five, yet, for the purpose of keeping up a peerage, it cannot bereckoned at much more than two and a half. Secondly, though the peersare, as Mr Sadler says, a marrying class, the younger sons of peers aredecidedly not a marrying class; so that a peer, though he has at leastas great a chance of having a son as his neighbours, has less chancethan they of having a collateral heir. 

We have now disposed, we think, of Mr Sadler's principle of population. Our readers must, by this time, be pretty well satisfied as to hisqualifications for setting up theories of his own. We will, therefore, present them with a few instances of the skill and fairness which heshows when he undertakes to pull down the theories of other men. Thedoctrine of Mr Malthus, that population, if not checked by want, by vice, by excessive mortality, or by the prudent self-denial ofindividuals, would increase in a geometric progression, is, in MrSadler's opinion, at once false and atrocious. 

"It may at once be denied, " says he, "that human increase proceedsgeometrically; and for this simple but decisive reason, that theexistence of a geometrical ratio of increase in the works of natureis neither true nor possible. It would fling into utter confusion allorder, time, magnitude, and space. "

This is as curious a specimen of reasoning as any that has been offeredto the world since the days when theories were founded on the principlethat nature abhors a vacuum. We proceed a few pages further, however;and we then find that geometric progression is unnatural only in thosecases in which Mr Malthus conceives that it exists; and that, in allcases in which Mr Malthus denies the existence of a geometric ratio, nature changes sides, and adopts that ratio as the rule of increase. 

Mr Malthus holds that subsistence will increase only in an arithmeticalratio. "As far as nature has to do with the question, " says Mr Sadler, "men might, for instance, plant twice the number of peas, and breedfrom a double number of the same animals, with equal prospect of theirmultiplication. " Now, if Mr Sadler thinks that, as far as nature isconcerned, four sheep will double as fast as two, and eight as fast asfour, how can he deny that the geometrical ratio of increase doesexist in the works of nature? Or has he a definition of his own forgeometrical progression, as well as for inverse proportion?

Mr Malthus, and those who agree with him, have generally referred tothe United States, as a country in which the human race increases in ageometrical ratio, and have fixed on thirty-five years as the term inwhich the population of that country doubles itself. Mr Sadler contendsthat it is physically impossible for a people to double in twenty-fiveyears; nay, that thirty-five years is far too short a period, --thatthe Americans do not double by procreation in less than forty-sevenyears, --and that the rapid increase of their numbers is produced byemigration from Europe. 

Emigration has certainly had some effect in increasing the population ofthe United States. But so great has the rate of that increase been that, after making full allowance for the effect of emigration, there will bea residue, attributable to procreation alone, amply sufficient to doublethe population in twenty-five years. 

Mr Sadler states the results of the four censuses as follows:--

"There were, of white inhabitants, in the whole of the United States in1790, 3, 093, 111; in 1800, 4, 309, 656; in 1810, 5, 862, 093; and in 1820, 7, 861, 710. The increase, in the first term, being 39 per cent. ; that inthe second, 36 per cent. ; and that in the third and last, 33 per cent. It is superfluous to say, that it is utterly impossible to deducethe geometric theory of human increase, whatever be the period ofduplication, from such terms as these. "

Mr Sadler is a bad arithmetician. The increase in the last term isnot as he states it, 33 per cent. , but more than 34 per cent. Now, anincrease of 32 per cent. In ten years, is more than sufficient to doublethe population in twenty-five years. And there is, we think, very strongreason to believe that the white population of the United States doesincrease by 32 per cent. Every ten years. 

Our reason is this. There is in the United States a class of personswhose numbers are not increased by emigration, --the negro slaves. Duringthe interval which elapsed between the census of 1810 and the censusof 1820, the change in their numbers must have been produced byprocreation, and by procreation alone. Their situation, though muchhappier than that of the wretched beings who cultivate the sugarplantations of Trinidad and Demerara, cannot be supposed to be morefavourable to health and fecundity than that of free labourers. In1810, the slave-trade had been but recently abolished; and there werein consequence many more male than female slaves, --a circumstance, ofcourse, very unfavourable to procreation. Slaves are perpetually passinginto the class of freemen; but no freeman ever descends into servitude;so that the census will not exhibit the whole effect of the procreationwhich really takes place. 

We find, by the census of 1810, that the number of slaves in the Unionwas then 1, 191, 000. In 1820, they had increased to 1, 538, 000. That isto say, in ten years, they had increased 29 per cent. --within threeper cent. Of that rate of increase which would double their numbersin twenty-five years. We may, we think, fairly calculate that, if thefemale slaves had been as numerous as the males, and if no manumissionshad taken place, the census of the slave population would have exhibitedan increase of 32 per cent. In ten years. 

If we are right in fixing on 32 per cent. As the rate at which the whitepopulation of America increases by procreation in ten years, it willfollow that, during the last ten years of the eighteenth century, nearlyone-sixth of the increase was the effect of emigration; from 1800 to1810, about one-ninth; and from 1810 to 1820, about one-seventeenth. This is what we should have expected; for it is clear that, unless thenumber of emigrants be constantly increasing, it must, as compared withthe resident population, be relatively decreasing. The number of personsadded to the population of the United States by emigration, between 1810and 1820, would be nearly 120, 000. From the data furnished by Mr Sadlerhimself, we should be inclined to think that this would be a fairestimate. 

"Dr Seybert says, that the passengers to ten of the principal ports ofthe United States, in the year 1817, amounted to 22, 235; of whom 11, 977were from Great Britain and Ireland; 4164 from Germany and Holland; 1245from France; 58 from Italy, 2901 from the British possessions in NorthAmerica; 1569 from the West Indies; and from all other countries, 321. These, however, we may conclude, with the editor of Styles's Register, were far short of the number that arrived. "

We have not the honour of knowing either Dr Seybert or the editor ofStyles's Register. We cannot, therefore, decide on their respectiveclaims to our confidence so peremptorily as Mr Sadler thinks fit to do. Nor can we agree to what Mr Sadler very gravely assigns as a reason fordisbelieving Dr Seyberts's testimony. "Such accounts, " he says, "if notwilfully exaggerated, must always fall short of the truth. " It would bea curious question of casuistry to determine what a man ought to do in acase in which he cannot tell the truth except by being guilty ofwilful exaggeration. We will, however, suppose, with Mr Sadler, that DrSeybert, finding himself compelled to choose between two sins, preferredtelling a falsehood to exaggerating; and that he has consequentlyunderrated the number of emigrants. We will take it at double of theDoctor's estimate, and suppose that, in 1817, 45, 000 Europeans crossedto the United States. Now, it must be remembered that the year 1817 wasa year of the severest and most general distress all over Europe, --ayear of scarcity everywhere, and of cruel famine in some places. Therecan, therefore, be no doubt that the emigration of 1817 was very farabove the average, probably more than three times that of an ordinaryyear. Till the year 1815, the war rendered it almost impossible toemigrate to the United States either from England or from the Continent. If we suppose the average emigration of the remaining years to have been16, 000, we shall probably not be much mistaken. In 1818 and 1819, the number was certainly much beyond that average; in 1815 and 1816, probably much below it. But, even if we were to suppose that, in everyyear from the peace to 1820, the number of emigrants had been as high aswe have supposed it to be in 1817, the increase by procreation among thewhite inhabitants of the United States would still appear to be about 30per cent. In ten years. 

Mr Sadler acknowledges that Cobbett exaggerates the number of emigrantswhen he states it at 150, 000 a year. Yet even this estimate, absurdlygreat as it is, would not be sufficient to explain the increase of thepopulation of the United States on Mr Sadler's principles. He is, hetells us, "convinced that doubling in 35 years is a far more rapidduplication than ever has taken place in that country from procreationonly. " An increase of 20 per cent. In ten years, by procreation, wouldtherefore be the very utmost that he would allow to be possible. We havealready shown, by reference to the census of the slave population, thatthis doctrine is quite absurd. And, if we suppose it to be sound, weshall be driven to the conclusion that above eight hundred thousandpeople emigrated from Europe to the United States in a space of littlemore than five years. The whole increase of the white population from1810 to 1820 was within a few hundreds of 2, 000, 000. If we are toattribute to procreation only 20 per cent. On the number returned by thecensus of 1810, we shall have about 830, 000 persons to account for insome other way;--and to suppose that the emigrants who went to Americabetween the peace of 1815 and the census of 1820, with the children whowere born to them there, would make up that number, would be the heightof absurdity. 

We could say much more; but we think it quite unnecessary at present. Wehave shown that Mr Sadler is careless in the collection of facts, --thathe is incapable of reasoning on facts when he has collected them, --thathe does not understand the simplest terms of science, --that he hasenounced a proposition of which he does not know the meaning, --thatthe proposition which he means to enounce, and which he tries to prove, leads directly to all those consequences which he represents as impiousand immoral, --and that, from the very documents to which he has himselfappealed, it may be demonstrated that his theory is false. We may, perhaps, resume the subject when his next volume appears. Meanwhile, wehope that he will delay its publication until he has learned a littlearithmetic, and unlearned a great deal of eloquence. 

*****

SADLER'S REFUTATION REFUTED. (January 1831. )

 "A Refutation of an Article in the Edinburgh Review (No. CII. ) entitled, 'Sadler's Law of Population, and disproof of Human Superfecundity;' containing also Additional Proofs of the Principle enunciated in that Treatise, founded on the Censuses of different Countries recently published. " By Michael Thomas Sadler, M. P. 8vo. London: 1830. 

"Before anything came out against my Essay, I was told I must preparemyself for a storm coming against it, it being resolved by some menthat it was necessary that book of mine should, as it is phrased, be rundown. "--John Locke. 

We have, in violation of our usual practice, transcribed Mr Sadler'stitle-page from top to bottom, motto and all. The parallel impliedbetween the Essay on the Human Understanding and the Essay onSuperfecundity is exquisitely laughable. We can match it, however, withmottoes as ludicrous. We remember to have heard of a dramatic piece, entitled "News from Camperdown, " written soon after Lord Duncan'svictory, by a man once as much in his own good graces as Mr Sadler is, and now as much forgotten as Mr Sadler will soon be, Robert Heron. Hispiece was brought upon the stage, and damned, "as it is phrased, " inthe second act; but the author, thinking that it had been unfairly andunjustly "run down, " published it, in order to put his critics to shame, with this motto from Swift: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this mark--that the dunces are all in confederacyagainst him. " We remember another anecdote, which may perhaps beacceptable to so zealous a churchman as Mr Sadler. A certain Antinomianpreacher, the oracle of a barn, in a county of which we do not think itproper to mention the name, finding that divinity was not by itself asufficiently lucrative profession, resolved to combine with it that ofdog-stealing. He was, by ill-fortune, detected in several offences ofthis description, and was in consequence brought before two justices, who, in virtue of the powers given them by an act of parliament, sentenced him to a whipping for each theft. The degrading punishmentinflicted on the pastor naturally thinned the flock; and the poor manwas in danger of wanting bread. He accordingly put forth a handbillsolemnly protesting his innocence, describing his sufferings, andappealing to the Christian charity of the public; and to his patheticaddress he prefixed this most appropriate text: "Thrice was I beatenwith rods. --St Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians. " He did not perceivethat, though St Paul had been scourged, no number of whippings, howeversevere, will of themselves entitle a man to be considered as an apostle. Mr Sadler seems to us to have fallen into a somewhat similar error. Heshould remember that, though Locke may have been laughed at, so has SirClaudius Hunter; and that it takes something more than the laughter ofall the world to make a Locke. 

The body of this pamphlet by no means justifies the parallel so modestlyinsinuated on the title-page. Yet we must own that, though Mr Sadlerhas not risen to the level of Locke, he has done what was almost asdifficult, if not as honourable--he has fallen below his own. He is atbest a bad writer. His arrangement is an elaborate confusion. His stylehas been constructed, with great care, in such a manner as to producethe least possible effect by means of the greatest possible number ofwords. Aspiring to the exalted character of a Christian philosopher, hecan never preserve through a single paragraph either the calmness of aphilosopher or the meekness of a Christian. His ill-nature would make avery little wit formidable. But, happily, his efforts to wound resemblethose of a juggler's snake. The bags of poison are full, but the fang iswanting. In this foolish pamphlet, all the unpleasant peculiarities ofhis style and temper are brought out in the strongest manner. He is fromthe beginning to the end in a paroxysm of rage, and would certainly dous some mischief if he knew how. We will give a single instance for thepresent. Others will present themselves as we proceed. We laughed atsome doggerel verses which he cited, and which we, never having seenthem before, suspected to be his own. We are now sure that if theprinciple on which Solomon decided a famous case of filiation werecorrect, there can be no doubt as to the justice of our suspicion. MrSadler, who, whatever elements of the poetical character he may lack, possesses the poetical irritability in an abundance which might havesufficed for Homer himself, resolved to retaliate on the person, who, as he supposed, had reviewed him. He has, accordingly, ransackedsome collection of college verses, in the hope of finding, among theperformances of his supposed antagonist, something as bad as his own. And we must in fairness admit that he has succeeded pretty well. We mustadmit that the gentleman in question sometimes put into his exercises, at seventeen, almost as great nonsense as Mr Sadler is in the habit ofputting into his books at sixty. 

Mr Sadler complains that we have devoted whole pages to mere abuse ofhim. We deny the charge. We have, indeed, characterised, in terms ofjust reprehension, that spirit which shows itself in every part of hisprolix work. Those terms of reprehension we are by no means inclinedto retract; and we conceive that we might have used much strongerexpressions, without the least offence either to truth or to decorum. There is a limit prescribed to us by our sense of what is due toourselves. But we think that no indulgence is due to Mr Sadler. A writerwho distinctly announces that he has not conformed to the candour of theage--who makes it his boast that he expresses himself throughout withthe greatest plainness and freedom--and whose constant practice provesthat by plainness and freedom he means coarseness and rancour--hasno right to expect that others shall remember courtesies which he hasforgotten, or shall respect one who has ceased to respect himself. 

Mr Sadler declares that he has never vilified Mr Malthus personally, and has confined himself to attacking the doctrines which that gentlemanmaintains. We should wish to leave that point to the decision of allwho have read Mr Sadler's book, or any twenty pages of it. To quoteparticular instances of a temper which penetrates and inspires the wholework, is to weaken our charge. Yet, that we may not be suspected offlinching, we will give two specimens, --the two first which occur to ourrecollection. "Whose minister is it that speaks thus?" says Mr Sadler, after misrepresenting in a most extraordinary manner, though, we arewilling to believe, unintentionally, one of the positions of Mr Malthus. "Whose minister is it that speaks thus? That of the lover and avenger oflittle children?" Again, Mr Malthus recommends, erroneously perhaps, butassuredly from humane motives, that alms, when given, should be givenvery sparingly. Mr Sadler quotes the recommendation, and adds thefollowing courteous comment:--"The tender mercies of the wicked arecruel. " We cannot think that a writer who indulges in these indecent andunjust attacks on professional and personal character has any right tocomplain of our sarcasms on his metaphors and rhymes. 

We will now proceed to examine the reply which Mr Sadler has thoughtfit to make to our arguments. He begins by attacking our remarks on theorigin of evil. They are, says he, too profound for common apprehension;and he hopes that they are too profound for our own. That they seemprofound to him we can well believe. Profundity, in its secondary as inits primary sense, is a relative term. When Grildrig was nearly drownedin the Brobdingnagian cream-jug he doubtless thought it very deep. Butto common apprehension our reasoning would, we are persuaded, appearperfectly simple. 

The theory of Mr Malthus, says Mr Sadler, cannot be true, because itasserts the existence of a great and terrible evil, and is thereforeinconsistent with the goodness of God. We answer thus. We know thatthere are in the world great and terrible evils. In spite of theseevils, we believe in the goodness of God. Why may we not then continueto believe in his goodness, though another evil should be added to thelist?

How does Mr Sadler answer this? Merely by telling us, that we are toowicked to be reasoned with. He completely shrinks from the question; aquestion, be it remembered, not raised by us--a question which we shouldhave felt strong objections to raising unnecessarily--a question putforward by himself, as intimately connected with the subject of histwo ponderous volumes. He attempts to carp at detached parts of ourreasoning on the subject. With what success he carries on this guerillawar after declining a general action with the main body of our argumentour readers shall see. 

"The Reviewer sends me to Paley, who is, I confess, rather moreintelligible on the subject, and who, fortunately, has decided the verypoint in dispute. I will first give the words of the Reviewer, who, whenspeaking of my general argument regarding the magnitude of the evils, moral and physical, implied in the theory I oppose, sums up his ideasthus:--'Mr Sadler says, that it is not a light or transient evil, but agreat and permanent evil. What then? The question of the origin of evilis a question of aye or no, --not a question of MORE or LESS. ' But whatsays Paley? His express rule is this, that 'when we cannot resolve allappearances into benevolence of design, we make the FEW give place tothe MANY, the LITTLE to the GREAT; that we take our judgment from alarge and decided preponderancy. ' Now in weighing these two authorities, directly at issue on this point, I think there will be little troublein determining which we shall make 'to give place;' or, if we 'look toa large and decided preponderancy' of either talent, learning, orbenevolence, from whom we shall 'take our judgment. ' The effrontery, or, to speak more charitably, the ignorance of a reference to Paley on thissubject, and in this instance, is really marvellous. "

Now, does not Mr Sadler see that the very words which he quotes fromPaley contain in themselves a refutation of his whole argument? Paleysays, indeed, as every man in his senses would say, that in a certaincase, which he has specified, the more and the less come into question. But in what case? "When we CANNOT resolve all appearances into thebenevolence of design. " It is better that there should be a littleevil than a great deal of evil. This is self-evident. But it is alsoself-evident, that no evil is better than a little evil. Why, then, isthere any evil? It is a mystery which we cannot solve. It is a mysterywhich Paley, by the very words which Mr Sadler has quoted, acknowledgeshimself unable to solve; and it is because he cannot solve that mysterythat he proceeds to take into consideration the more and the less. Believing in the divine goodness, we must necessarily believe that theevils which exist are necessary to avert greater evils. But what thosegreater evils are, we do not know. How the happiness of any part of thesentient creation would be in any respect diminished if, for example, children cut their teeth without pain, we cannot understand. The caseis exactly the same with the principle of Mr Malthus. If superfecundityexists, it exists, no doubt, because it is a less evil than some otherevil which otherwise would exist. Can Mr Sadler prove that this is animpossibility?

One single expression which Mr Sadler employs on this subject issufficient to show how utterly incompetent he is to discuss it. "On theChristian hypothesis, " says he, "no doubt exists as to the origin ofevil. " He does not, we think, understand what is meant by the originof evil. The Christian Scriptures profess to give no solution of thatmystery. They relate facts: but they leave the metaphysical questionundetermined. They tell us that man fell; but why he was not soconstituted as to be incapable of falling, or why the Supreme Being hasnot mitigated the consequences of the Fall more than they actually havebeen mitigated, the Scriptures did not tell us, and, it may withoutpresumption be said, could not tell us, unless we had been creaturesdifferent from what we are. There is something, either in the nature ofour faculties or in the nature of the machinery employed by us for thepurpose of reasoning, which condemns us, on this and similar subjects, to hopeless ignorance. Man can understand these high matters only byceasing to be man, just as a fly can understand a lemma of Newton onlyby ceasing to be a fly. To make it an objection to the Christian systemthat it gives us no solution of these difficulties, is to make it anobjection to the Christian system that it is a system formed for humanbeings. Of the puzzles of the Academy, there is not one which does notapply as strongly to Deism as to Christianity, and to Atheism as toDeism. There are difficulties in everything. Yet we are sure thatsomething must be true. 

If revelation speaks on the subject of the origin of evil it speaksonly to discourage dogmatism and temerity. In the most ancient, the mostbeautiful, and the most profound of all works on the subject, the Bookof Job, both the sufferer who complains of the divine government, andthe injudicious advisers who attempt to defend it on wrong principles, are silenced by the voice of supreme wisdom, and reminded that thequestion is beyond the reach of the human intellect. St Paul silencesthe supposed objector, who strives to force him into controversy, inthe same manner. The church has been, ever since the apostolic times, agitated by this question, and by a question which is inseparable fromit, the question of fate and free-will. The greatest theologians andphilosophers have acknowledged that these things were too high for them, and have contended themselves with hinting at what seemed to be the mostprobable solution. What says Johnson? "All our effort ends in beliefthat for the evils of life there is some good reason, and in confessionthat the reason cannot be found. " What says Paley? "Of the origin ofevil no universal solution has been discovered. I mean no solution whichreaches to all cases of complaint. --The consideration of general laws, although it may concern the question of the origin of evil very nearly, which I think it does, rests in views disproportionate to our faculties, and in a knowledge which we do not possess. It serves rather to accountfor the obscurity of the subject, than to supply us with distinctanswers to our difficulties. " What says presumptuous ignorance? "Nodoubt whatever exists as to the origin of evil. " It is remarkable thatMr Sadler does not tell us what his solution is. The world, we suspect, will lose little by his silence. 

He falls on the reviewer again. 

"Though I have shown, " says he, "and on authorities from which none canlightly differ, not only the cruelty and immorality which this systemnecessarily involves, but its most revolting feature, its grosspartiality, he has wholly suppressed this, the most important part of myargument; as even the bare notice of it would have instantly exposedthe sophistry to which he has had recourse. If, however, he would fairlymeet the whole question, let him show me that 'hydrophobia, ' which hegives as an example of the laws of God and nature, is a calamity towhich the poor alone are liable; or that 'malaria, ' which, with singularinfelicity, he has chosen as an illustration of the fancied evils ofpopulation, is a respecter of persons. "

We said nothing about this argument, as Mr Sadler calls it, merelybecause we did not think it worth while: and we are half ashamed to sayanything about it now. But, since Mr Sadler is so urgent for an answer, he shall have one. If there is evil, it must be either partial oruniversal. Which is the better of the two? Hydrophobia, says this greatphilosopher, is no argument against the divine goodness, because maddogs bite rich and poor alike; but if the rich were exempted, andonly nine people suffered for ten who suffer now, hydrophobia wouldforthwith, simply because it would produce less evil than at present, become an argument against the divine goodness! To state such aproposition, is to refute it. And is not the malaria a respecter ofpersons? It infests Rome. Does it infest London? There are complaintspeculiar to the tropical countries. There are others which are foundonly in mountainous districts; others which are confined to marshyregions; others again which run in particular families. Is not thispartiality? Why is it more inconsistent with the divine goodness thatpoor men should suffer an evil from which rich men are exempt, than thata particular portion of the community should inherit gout, scrofula, insanity, and other maladies? And are there no miseries under which, infact, the poor alone are suffering? Mr Sadler himself acknowledges, inthis very paragraph, that there are such; but he tells us that thesecalamities are the effects of misgovernment, and that this misgovernmentis the effect of political economy. Be it so. But does he not see thathe is only removing the difficulty one step further? Why does Providencesuffer men, whose minds are filled with false and pernicious notions, tohave power in the state? For good ends, we doubt not, if the fact be so;but for ends inscrutable to us, who see only a small part of the vastscheme, and who see that small part only for a short period. Does MrSadler doubt that the Supreme Being has power as absolute over therevolutions of political as over the organisation of natural bodies?Surely not: and, if not, we do not see that he vindicates the waysof Providence by attributing the distresses, which the poor, as heconfesses, endure, to an error in legislation rather than to a law ofphysiology. Turn the question as we may, disguise it as we may, we shallfind that it at last resolves itself into the same great enigma, --theorigin of physical and moral evil: an enigma which the highest humanintellects have given up in despair, but which Mr Sadler thinks himselfperfectly able to solve. 

He next accuses us of having paused long on verbal criticism. Wecertainly did object to his improper use of the words "inversevariation. " Mr Sadler complains of this with his usual bitterness. 

"Now what is the Reviewer's quarrel with me on this occasion? That hedoes not understand the meaning of my terms? No. He acknowledges thecontrary. That I have not fully explained the sense in which I have usedthem? No. An explanation, he knows, is immediately subjoined, thoughhe has carefully suppressed it. That I have varied the sense in which Ihave applied them? No. I challenge him to show it. But he neverthelessgoes on for many pages together in arguing against what he knows, and, in fact, acknowledges, I did not mean; and then turns round and arguesagain, though much more feebly, indeed, against what he says I did mean!Now, even had I been in error as to the use of a word, I appeal to thereader whether such an unworthy and disingenuous course would not, ifgenerally pursued, make controversy on all subjects, however important, that into which, in such hands, it always degenerates--a dispute aboutwords. "

The best way to avoid controversies about words is to use words in theirproper senses. Mr Sadler may think our objection captious; but howhe can think it disingenuous we do not well understand. If we hadrepresented him as meaning what we knew that he did not mean, we shouldhave acted in a disgraceful manner. But we did not represent him, and heallows that we did not represent him, as meaning what he did not mean. We blamed him, and with perfect justice and propriety, for saying whathe did not mean. Every man has in one sense a right to define his ownterms; that is to say, if he chooses to call one two, and two seven, it would be absurd to charge him with false arithmetic for saying thatseven is the double of one. But it would be perfectly fair to blamehim for changing the established sense of words. The words, "inversevariation, " in matters not purely scientific, have often been usedin the loose way in which Mr Sadler has used them. But we shall besurprised if he can find a single instance of their having been so usedin a matter of pure arithmetic. 

We will illustrate our meaning thus. Lord Thurlow, in one of hisspeeches about Indian affairs, said that one Hastings was worth twentyMacartneys. He might, with equal propriety, have said ten Macartneys, ora hundred Macartneys. Nor would there have been the least inconsistencyin his using all the three expressions in one speech. But would this bean excuse for a financier who, in a matter of account, should reason asif ten, twenty, and a hundred were the same number?

Mr Sadler tells us that he purposely avoided the use of the wordproportion in stating his principle. He seems, therefore, to allow thatthe word proportion would have been improper. Yet he did in fact employit in explaining his principle, accompanied with an awkward explanationintended to signify that, though he said proportion, he meant somethingquite different from proportion. We should not have said so much on thissubject either in our former article, or at present, but that there isin all Mr Sadler's writings an air of scientific pedantry, which rendershis errors fair game. We will now let the matter rest; and, insteadof assailing Mr Sadler with our verbal criticism, proceed to defendourselves against his literal criticism. 

"The Reviewer promised his readers that some curious results shouldfollow from his shuffling. We will enable him to keep his word. 

"'In two English counties, ' says he, 'which contain from 50 to 100inhabitants on the square mile, the births to 100 marriages are, according to Mr Sadler, 420; but in 44 departments of France, in whichthere are from one to two hecatares [hectares] to each inhabitant, thatis to say, in which the population is from 125 to 250, or rather more, to the square mile, the number of births to one hundred marriages is 423and a fraction. '

"The first curious result is, that our Reviewer is ignorant, not only ofthe name, but of the extent, of a French hectare; otherwise he is guiltyof a practice which, even if transferred to the gambling-table, would, I presume, prevent him from being allowed ever to shuffle, even there, again. He was most ready to pronounce upon a mistake of one per cent. Ina calculation of mine, the difference in no wise affecting the argumentin hand; but here I must inform him, that his error, whether wilfully orignorantly put forth, involves his entire argument. 

"The French hectare I had calculated to contain 107, 708 67/100 Englishsquare feet, or 2 47265/100000 acres; Dr Kelly takes it, on authoritywhich he gives, at 107, 644 143923/1000000 English square feet, or 2471169/1000000 acres. The last French "Annuaires", however, state it, I perceive, as being equal to 2 473614/1000000 acres. The difference isvery trifling, and will not in the slightest degree cover our critic'serror. The first calculation gives about 258 83/100 hectares to anEnglish square mile; the second, 258 73/100; the last, or Frenchcalculation 258 98/100. When, therefore, the Reviewer calculates thepopulation of the departments of France thus: 'from one to two hectaresto each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population is from 125to 250, or rather more, to the square mile; his 'that is to say, ' isthat which he ought not to have said--no rare case with him, as we shallshow throughout. "

We must inform Mr Sadler, in the first place, that we inserted the vowelwhich amuses him so much, not from ignorance or from carelessness, butadvisedly, and in conformity with the practice of several respectablewriters. He will find the word hecatare in Ree's Cyclopaedia. He willfind it also in Dr Young. We prefer the form which we have employed, because it is etymologically correct. Mr Sadler seems not to know that ahecatare is so-called, because it contains a hundred ares. 

We were perfectly acquainted with the extent as well as with the name ofa hecatare. Is it at all strange that we should use the words "250, or rather more, " in speaking of 258 and a fraction? Do not peopleconstantly employ round numbers with still greater looseness, intranslating foreign distances and foreign money? If indeed, as Mr Sadlersays, the difference which he chooses to call an error involved theentire argument, or any part of the argument, we should have been guiltyof gross unfairness. But it is not so. The difference between 258 and250, as even Mr Sadler would see if he were not blind with fury, wasa difference to his advantage. Our point was this. The fecundity of adense population in certain departments of France is greater than thatof a thinly scattered population in certain counties of England. Themore dense, therefore, the population in those departments ofFrance, the stronger was our case. By putting 250, instead of 258, weunderstated our case. Mr Sadler's correction of our orthography leads usto suspect that he knows very little of Greek; and his correction of ourcalculation quite satisfies us that he knows very little of logic. 

But, to come to the gist of the controversy. Our argument, drawn fromMr Sadler's own tables, remains absolutely untouched. He makes excusesindeed; for an excuse is the last thing that Mr Sadler will ever want. There is something half laughable and half provoking in the facilitywith which he asserts and retracts, says and unsays, exactly as suitshis argument. Sometimes the register of baptisms is imperfect, andsometimes the register of burials. Then again these registers become allat once exact almost to an unit. He brings forward a census of Prussiain proof of his theory. We show that it directly confutes his theory;and it forthwith becomes "notoriously and grossly defective. " The censusof the Netherlands is not to be easily dealt with; and the census of theNetherlands is therefore pronounced inaccurate. In his book on the Lawof Population, he tells us that "in the slave-holding States of America, the male slaves constitute a decided majority of that unfortunateclass. " This fact we turned against him; and, forgetting that he hadhimself stated it, he tells us that "it is as erroneous as many otherideas which we entertain, " and that "he will venture to assert that thefemale slaves were, at the nubile age, as numerous as the males. " Theincrease of the negroes in the United States puzzles him; and he createsa vast slave-trade to solve it. He confounds together things perfectlydifferent; the slave-trade carried on under the American flag, andthe slave-trade carried on for the supply of the American soil, --theslave-trade with Africa, and the internal slave-trade between thedifferent States. He exaggerates a few occasional acts of smuggling intoan immense and regular importation, and makes his escape as well as hecan under cover of this hubbub of words. Documents are authentic andfacts true precisely in proportion to the support which they affordto his theory. This is one way, undoubtedly, of making books; but wequestion much whether it be the way to make discoveries. 

As to the inconsistencies which we pointed out between his theory andhis own tables, he finds no difficulty in explaining them away or facingthem out. In one case there would have been no contradiction if, insteadof taking one of his tables, we had multiplied the number of threetables together, and taken the average. Another would never have existedif there had not been a great migration of people into Lancashire. Another is not to be got over by any device. But then it is very small, and of no consequence to the argument. 

Here, indeed, he is perhaps right. The inconsistencies which we noticed, were, in themselves, of little moment. We give them as samples, --asmere hints, to caution those of our readers who might also happen to bereaders of Mr Sadler against being deceived by his packing. He complainsof the word packing. We repeat it; and, since he has defied us to theproof, we will go fully into the question which, in our last article, weonly glanced at, and prove, in such a manner as shall not leave even toMr Sadler any shadow of excuse, that his theory owes its speciousness topacking, and to packing alone. 

That our readers may fully understand our reasoning, we will again statewhat Mr Sadler's proposition is. He asserts that, on a given space, thenumber of children to a marriage becomes less and less as the populationbecomes more and more numerous. 

We will begin with the census of France given by Mr Sadler. By joiningthe departments together in combinations which suit his purpose, he hascontrived to produce three tables, which he presents as decisive proofsof his theory. 

The first is as follows:--

"The legitimate births are, in those departments where there are to eachinhabitant--

 Hectares Departments To every 1000 marriages

 4 to 5 2 130 3 to 4 3 4372 2 to 3 30 4250 1 to 2 44 4234 . 06 to 1 5 4146 . 06 1 2657

The two other computations he has given in one table. We subjoin it. 

 Hect. To each Number of Legit. Births to Legit. Births to Inhabitant Departments 100 Marriages 100 Mar. (1826)

 4 to 5 2 497 397 3 to 4 3 439 389 2 to 3 30 424 379 1 to 2 44 420 375 under 1 5 415 372 and . 06 1 263 253

These tables, as we said in our former article, certainly look wellfor Mr Sadler's theory. "Do they?" says he. "Assuredly they do; and inadmitting this, the Reviewer has admitted the theory to be proved. " Wecannot absolutely agree to this. A theory is not proved, we must tellMr Sadler, merely because the evidence in its favour looks well at firstsight. There is an old proverb, very homely in expression, but welldeserving to be had in constant remembrance by all men, engaged eitherin action or in speculation--"One story is good till another is told!"

We affirm, then, that the results which these tables present, and whichseem so favourable to Mr Sadler's theory, are produced by packing, andby packing alone. 

In the first place, if we look at the departments singly, the whole isin disorder. About the department in which Paris is situated there isno dispute: Mr Malthus distinctly admits that great cities preventpropagation. There remain eighty-four departments; and of these thereis not, we believe, a single one in the place which, according to MrSadler's principle, it ought to occupy. 

That which ought to be highest in fecundity is tenth in one table, fourteenth in another, and only thirty-first according to the third. That which ought to be third is twenty-second by the table, which placesit highest. That which ought to be fourth is fortieth by the table, which places it highest. That which ought to be eighth is fiftieth orsixtieth. That which ought to be tenth from the top is at about the samedistance from the bottom. On the other hand, that which, according to MrSadler's principle, ought to be last but two of all the eighty-four isthird in two of the tables, and seventh in that which places it lowest;and that which ought to be last is, in one of Mr Sadler's tables, abovethat which ought to be first, in two of them, above that which ought tobe third, and, in all of them, above that which ought to be fourth. 

By dividing the departments in a particular manner, Mr Sadler hasproduced results which he contemplates with great satisfaction. But, ifwe draw the lines a little higher up or a little lower down, we shallfind that all his calculations are thrown into utter confusion; andthat the phenomena, if they indicate anything, indicate a law the veryreverse of that which he has propounded. 

Let us take, for example, the thirty-two departments, as they stand inMr Sadler's table, from Lozere to Meuse inclusive, and divide them intotwo sets of sixteen departments each. The set from Lozere and Loiretinclusive consists of those departments in which the space to eachinhabitant is from 3. 8 hecatares to 2. 42. The set from Cantal to Meuseinclusive consists of those departments in which the space to eachinhabitant is from 2. 42 hecatares to 2. 07. That is to say, in theformer set the inhabitants are from 68 to 107 on the square mile, orthereabouts. In the latter they are from 107 to 125. Therefore, on MrSadler's principle, the fecundity ought to be smaller in the latter setthan in the former. It is, however, greater, and that in every one of MrSadler's three tables. 

Let us now go a little lower down, and take another set of sixteendepartments--those which lie together in Mr Sadler's tables, fromHerault to Jura inclusive. Here the population is still thicker thanin the second of those sets which we before compared. The fecundity, therefore, ought, on Mr Sadler's principle, to be less than in that set. But it is again greater, and that in all Mr Sadler's three tables. Wehave a regularly ascending series, where, if his theory had any truthin it, we ought to have a regularly descending series. We will give theresults of our calculation. 

The number of children to 1000 marriages is--

 1st Table 2nd Table 3rd Table

 In the sixteen departments where there are from 68 to 107 people on a square mile. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 4188 4226 3780

 In the sixteen departments where there are from 107 to 125 people on a square mile. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 4374 4332 3855

 In the sixteen departments where there are from 134 to 155 people on a square mile. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 4484 4416 3914

We will give another instance, if possible still more decisive. Wewill take the three departments of France which ought, on Mr Sadler'sprinciple, to be the lowest in fecundity of all the eighty-five, savingonly that in which Paris stands; and we will compare them with thethree departments in which the fecundity ought, according to him, to begreater than in any other department of France, two only excepted. Wewill compare Bas Rhin, Rhone, and Nord, with Lozere, Landes, and Indre. In Lozere, Landes, and Indre, the population is from 68 to 84 on thesquare mile or nearly so. In Bas Rhin, Rhone, and Nord, it is from 300to 417 on the square mile. There cannot be a more overwhelming answer toMr Sadler's theory than the table which we subjoin:

The number of births to 1000 marriages is--

 1st Table 2nd Table 3rd Table

 In the three departments in which there are from 68 to 84 people on the square mile. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 4372 4390 3890

 In the three departments in which there are from 300 to 417 people on the square mile. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 4457 4510 4060

These are strong cases. But we have a still stronger case. Take thewhole of the third, fourth, and fifth divisions into which Mr Sadlerhas portioned out the French departments. These three divisions make upalmost the whole kingdom of France. They contain seventy-nine out of theeighty-five departments. Mr Sadler has contrived to divide them insuch a manner that, to a person who looks merely at his averages, thefecundity seems to diminish as the population thickens. We will separatethem into two parts instead of three. We will draw the line betweenthe department of Gironde and that of Herault. On the one side are thethirty-two departments from Cher to Gironde inclusive. On the other sideare the forty-six departments from Herault to Nord inclusive. In all thedepartments of the former set, the population is under 132 on the squaremile. In all the departments of the latter set, it is above 132 onthe square mile. It is clear that, if there be one word of truth in MrSadler's theory, the fecundity in the latter of these divisions mustbe very decidedly smaller than in the former. Is it so? It is, on thecontrary, greater in all the three tables. We give the result. 

The number of births to 1000 marriages is--

 1st Table 2nd Table 3rd Table

 In the thirty-two departments in which there are from 86 to 132 people on the square mile. .. .. .. 4210 4199 3760

 In the forty-seven departments in which there are from 132 to 417 people on the square mile. .. .. .. . 4250 4224 3766

This fact is alone enough to decide the question. Yet it is only oneof a crowd of similar facts. If the line between Mr Sadler's second andthird division be drawn six departments lower down, the third and fourthdivisions will, in all the tables, be above the second. If the linebetween the third and fourth divisions be drawn two departments lowerdown, the fourth division will be above the third in all the tables. Ifthe line between the fourth and fifth division be drawn two departmentslower down, the fifth will, in all the tables, be above the fourth, above the third, and even above the second. How, then, has Mr Sadlerobtained his results? By packing solely. By placing in one compartmenta district no larger than the Isle of Wight; in another, a districtsomewhat less than Yorkshire; in the third, a territory much larger thanthe island of Great Britain. 

By the same artifice it is that he has obtained from the census ofEngland those delusive averages which he brings forward with theutmost ostentation in proof of his principle. We will examine the factsrelating to England, as we have examined those relating to France. 

If we look at the counties one by one, Mr Sadler's principle utterlyfails. Hertfordshire with 251 on the square mile; Worcester with 258;and Kent with 282, exhibit a far greater fecundity than the East Ridingof York, which has 151 on the square mile; Monmouthshire, which has 145;or Northumberland, which has 108. The fecundity of Staffordshire, which has more than 300 on the square mile, is as high as the averagefecundity of the counties which have from 150 to 200 on the square mile. But, instead of confining ourselves to particular instances, we will trymasses. 

Take the eight counties of England which stand together in Mr Sadler'slist, from Cumberland to Dorset inclusive. In these the populationis from 107 to 150 on the square mile. Compare with these the eightcounties from Berks to Durham inclusive, in which the population is from175 to 200 on the square mile. Is the fecundity in the latter countiessmaller than in the former? On the contrary, the result stands thus:

The number of children to 100 marriages is--

 In the eight counties of England, in which there are from 107 to 146 people on the square mile. .. .. .. .. .. .. 388

 In the eight counties of England, in which there are from 175 to 200 people on the square mile. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 402

Take the six districts from the East Riding of York to the County ofNorfolk inclusive. Here the population is from 150 to 170 on thesquare mile. To these oppose the six counties from Derby to Worcesterinclusive. The population is from 200 to 260. Here again we find that alaw, directly the reverse of that which Mr Sadler has laid down, appearsto regulate the fecundity of the inhabitants. 

The number of children to 100 marriages is--

 In the six counties in which there are from 150 to 170 people on the square mile. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 392

 In the six counties in which there are from 200 to 260 people on the square mile. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 399

But we will make another experiment on Mr Sadler's tables, if possiblemore decisive than any of those which we have hitherto made. We willtake the four largest divisions into which he has distributed theEnglish counties, and which follow each other in regular order. Thatour readers may fully comprehend the nature of that packing by which histheory is supported, we will set before them this part of his table. 

(Here follows a table showing for population on a square mile theproportion of births to 100 marriages, based on figures for the years1810 to 1821. 

 100 to 150. .. 396 150 to 200. .. 390 200 to 250. .. 388 250 to 300. .. 378)

These averages look well, undoubtedly, for Mr Sadler's theory. Thenumbers 396, 390, 388, 378, follow each other very speciously in adescending order. But let our readers divide these thirty-four countiesinto two equal sets of seventeen counties each, and try whether theprinciple will then hold good. We have made this calculation, and wepresent them with the following result. 

The number of children to 100 marriages is--

 In the seventeen counties of England in which there are from 100 to 177 people on the square mile. .. .. .. .. . 387

 In the seventeen counties in which there are from 177 to 282 people on the square mile. .. .. .. .. . 389

The difference is small, but not smaller than differences which MrSadler has brought forward as proofs of his theory. We say thatthese English tables no more prove that fecundity increases with thepopulation than that it diminishes with the population. The thirty-fourcounties which we have taken make up, at least four-fifths of thekingdom: and we see that, through those thirty-four counties, thephenomena are directly opposed to Mr Sadler's principle. That in thecapital, and in great manufacturing towns, marriages are less prolificthan in the open country, we admit, and Mr Malthus admits. But that anycondensation of the population, short of that which injures all physicalenergies, will diminish the prolific powers of man, is, from these verytables of Mr Sadler, completely disproved. 

It is scarcely worth while to proceed with instances, after proofs sooverwhelming as those which we have given. Yet we will show that MrSadler has formed his averages on the census of Prussia by an artificeexactly similar to that which we have already exposed. 

Demonstrating the Law of Population from the Censuses of Prussia at twoseveral Periods. 

(Here follows a table showing for inhabitants on a square league theaverage number of births to each marriage from two different censuses. )

 1756 1784

 832 to 928. .. 4. 34 and 4. 72 1175 to 1909. .. 4. 14 and 4. 45 (including East Prussia at 1175) 2083 to 2700. .. 3. 84 and 4. 24 3142 to 3461. .. 3. 65 and 4. 08

Of the census of 1756 we will say nothing, as Mr Sadler, finding himselfhard pressed by the argument which we drew from it, now declares it tobe grossly defective. We confine ourselves to the census of 1784: and wewill draw our lines at points somewhat different from those at which MrSadler has drawn his. Let the first compartment remain as it stands. Let East Prussia, which contains a much larger population than his lastcompartment, stand alone in the second division. Let the thirdconsist of the New Mark, the Mark of Brandenburg, East Friesland andGuelderland, and the fourth of the remaining provinces. Our readerswill find that, on this arrangement, the division which, on Mr Sadler'sprinciple, ought to be second in fecundity stands higher than that whichought to be first; and that the division which ought to be fourth standshigher than that which ought to be third. We will give the result in oneview. 

The number of births to a marriage is--

 In those provinces of Prussia where there are fewer than 1000 people on the square league. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 4. 72

 In the province in which there are 1175 people on the square league. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 5. 10

 In the provinces in which there are from 1190 to 2083 people on the square league. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 4. 10

 In the provinces in which there are from 2314 to 3461 people on the square league. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 4. 27

We will go no further with this examination. In fact, we have nothingmore to examine. The tables which we have scrutinised constitute thewhole strength of Mr Sadler's case; and we confidently leave it to ourreaders to say, whether we have not shown that the strength of his caseis weakness. 

Be it remembered too that we are reasoning on data furnished by MrSadler himself. We have not made collections of facts to set againsthis, as we easily might have done. It is on his own showing, it is outof his own mouth, that his theory stands condemned. 

That packing which we have exposed is not the only sort of packing whichMr Sadler has practised. We mentioned in our review some facts relatingto the towns of England, which appear from Mr Sadler's tables, and whichit seems impossible to explain if his principles be sound. The averagefecundity of a marriage in towns of fewer than 3000 inhabitants isgreater than the average fecundity of the kingdom. The average fecundityin towns of from 4000 to 5000 inhabitants is greater than the averagefecundity of Warwickshire, Lancashire, or Surrey. How is it, we asked, if Mr Sadler's principle be correct, that the fecundity of Guildfordshould be greater than the average fecundity of the county in which itstands?

Mr Sadler, in reply, talks about "the absurdity of comparing thefecundity in the small towns alluded to with that in the counties ofWarwick and Stafford, or in those of Lancaster and Surrey. " He proceedsthus--

"In Warwickshire, far above half the population is comprised in largetowns, including, of course, the immense metropolis of one great branchof our manufactures, Birmingham. In the county of Stafford, besidesthe large and populous towns in its iron districts, situated so closetogether as almost to form, for considerable distances, a continuousstreet; there is, in its potteries, a great population, recentlyaccumulated, not included, indeed, in the towns distinctly enumerated inthe censuses, but vastly exceeding in its condensation that found in theplaces to which the Reviewer alludes. In Lancashire, again, to whichhe also appeals, one-fourth of the entire population is made up of theinhabitants of two only of the towns of that county; far above half ofit is contained in towns, compared with which those he refers to arevillages: even the hamlets of the manufacturing parts of Lancashire areoften far more populous than the places he mentions. But he presentsus with a climax of absurdity in appealing lastly to the population ofSurrey as quite rural compared with that of the twelve towns havingless than 5000 inhabitants in their respective jurisdictions, such asSaffron-Walden, Monmouth, etc. Now, in the last census, Surrey numbered398, 658 inhabitants, and to say not a word about the other towns of thecounty, much above two hundred thousands of these are WITHIN THE BILLSOF MORTALITY! 'We should, therefore, be glad to know' how it is utterlyinconsistent with my principle that the fecundity of Guildford, whichnumbers about 3000 inhabitants, should be greater than the averagefecundity of Surrey, made up, as the bulk of the population of Surreyis, of the inhabitants of some of the worst parts of the metropolis? Orwhy the fecundity of a given number of marriages in the eleven littlerural towns he alludes to, being somewhat higher than that of an equalnumber, half taken, for instance, from the heart of Birmingham orManchester, and half from the populous districts by which they aresurrounded, is inconsistent with my theory?

"Had the Reviewer's object, in this instance, been to discover thetruth, or had he known how to pursue it, it is perfectly clear, atfirst sight, that he would not have instituted a comparison between theprolificness which exists in the small towns he has alluded to, andthat in certain districts, the population of which is made up, partlyof rural inhabitants and partly of accumulations of people in immensemasses, the prolificness of which, if he will allow me still the use ofthe phrase, is inversely as their magnitude; but he would have comparedthese small towns with the country places properly so called, and thenagain the different classes of towns with each other; this method wouldhave led him to certain conclusions on the subject. "

Now, this reply shows that Mr Sadler does not in the least understandthe principle which he has himself laid down. What is that principle?It is this, that the fecundity of human beings ON GIVEN SPACES, variesinversely as their numbers. We know what he means by inverse variation. But we must suppose that he uses the words, "given spaces, " in theproper sense. Given spaces are equal spaces. Is there any reason tobelieve, that in those parts of Surrey which lie within the billsof mortality, there is any space equal in area to the space on whichGuildford stands, which is more thickly peopled than the space on whichGuildford stands? We do not know that there is any such. We are surethat there are not many. Why, therefore, on Mr Sadler's principle, should the people of Guildford be more prolific than the people who livewithin the bills of mortality? And, if the people of Guildford ought, ason Mr Sadler's principle they unquestionably ought, to stand as low inthe scale of fecundity as the people of Southwark itself, it follows, most clearly, that they ought to stand far lower than the averageobtained by taking all the people of Surrey together. 

The same remark applies to the case of Birmingham, and to all the othercases which Mr Sadler mentions. Towns of 5000 inhabitants may be, andoften are, as thickly peopled "on a given space, " as Birmingham. Theyare, in other words, as thickly peopled as a portion of Birmingham, equal to them in area. If so, on Mr Sadler's principle, they ought to beas low in the scale of fecundity as Birmingham. But they are not so. Onthe contrary, they stand higher than the average obtained by taking thefecundity of Birmingham in combination with the fecundity of the ruraldistricts of Warwickshire. 

The plain fact is, that Mr Sadler has confounded the population of acity with its population "on a given space, "--a mistake which, in agentleman who assures us that mathematical science was one of his earlyand favourite studies, is somewhat curious. It is as absurd, on hisprinciple, to say that the fecundity of London ought to be less thanthe fecundity of Edinburgh, because London has a greater population thanEdinburgh, as to say that the fecundity of Russia ought to be greaterthan that of England, because Russia has a greater population thanEngland. He cannot say that the spaces on which towns stand are toosmall to exemplify the truth of his principle. For he has himselfbrought forward the scale of fecundity in towns, as a proof of hisprinciple. And, in the very passage which we quoted above, he tells usthat, if we knew how to pursue truth or wished to find it, we "shouldhave compared these small towns with country places, and the differentclasses of towns with each other. " That is to say, we ought to comparetogether such unequal spaces as give results favourable to his theory, and never to compare such equal spaces as give results opposed to it. Does he mean anything by "a given space?" Or does he mean merely sucha space as suits his argument? It is perfectly clear that, if he isallowed to take this course, he may prove anything. No fact can comeamiss to him. Suppose, for example, that the fecundity of New Yorkshould prove to be smaller than the fecundity of Liverpool. "That, " saysMr Sadler, "makes for my theory. For there are more people within twomiles of the Broadway of New York, than within two miles of the Exchangeof Liverpool. " Suppose, on the other hand, that the fecundity of NewYork should be greater than the fecundity of Liverpool. "This, " says MrSadler again, "is an unanswerable proof of my theory. For there are manymore people within forty miles of Liverpool than within forty milesof New York. " In order to obtain his numbers, he takes spaces in anycombinations which may suit him. In order to obtain his averages, hetakes numbers in any combinations which may suit him. And then he tellsus that, because his tables, at the first glance, look well for histheory, his theory is irrefragably proved. 

We will add a few words respecting the argument which we drew from thepeerage. Mr Sadler asserted that the peers were a class condemned bynature to sterility. We denied this, and showed from the last editionof Debrett, that the peers of the United Kingdom have considerably morethan the average number of children to a marriage. Mr Sadler's answerhas amused us much. He denies the accuracy of our counting, and, byreckoning all the Scotch and Irish peers as peers of the United Kingdom, certainly makes very different numbers from those which we gave. Amember of the Parliament of the United Kingdom might have been expected, we think, to know better what a peer of the United Kingdom is. 

By taking the Scotch and Irish peers, Mr Sadler has altered the average. But it is considerably higher than the average fecundity of England, and still, therefore, constitutes an unanswerable argument against histheory. 

The shifts to which, in this difficulty, he has recourse, areexceedingly diverting. "The average fecundity of the marriages ofpeers, " said we, "is higher by one-fifth than the average fecundity ofmarriages throughout the kingdom. "

"Where, or by whom did the Reviewer find it supposed, " answers MrSadler, "that the registered baptisms expressed the full fecundity ofthe marriages of England?"

Assuredly, if the registers of England are so defective as to explainthe difference which, on our calculation, exists between the fecundityof the peers and the fecundity of the people, no argument against MrSadler's theory can be drawn from that difference. But what becomesof all the other arguments which Mr Sadler has founded on these veryregisters? Above all, what becomes of his comparison between thecensuses of England and France? In the pamphlet before us, he dwellswith great complacency on a coincidence which seems to him to supporthis theory, and which to us seems, of itself, sufficient to overthrowit. 

"In my table of the population of France in the forty-four departmentsin which there are from one to two hectares to each inhabitant, thefecundity of 100 marriages, calculated on the average of the results ofthe three computations relating to different periods given in my table, is 406 7/10. In the twenty-two counties of England in which there isfrom one to two hectares to each inhabitant, or from 129 to 259 on thesquare mile, --beginning, therefore, with Huntingdonshire, and endingwith Worcestershire, --the whole number of marriages during ten yearswill be found to amount to 379, 624, and the whole number of the birthsduring the same term to 1, 545, 549--or 407 1/10 births to 100 marriages!A difference of one in one thousand only, compared with the Frenchproportion!"

Does not Mr Sadler see that, if the registers of England, which arenotoriously very defective, give a result exactly corresponding almostto an unit with that obtained from the registers of France, which arenotoriously very full and accurate, this proves the very reverse of whathe employs it to prove? The correspondence of the registers proves thatthere is no correspondence in the facts. In order to raise the averagefecundity of England even to the level of the average fecundity ofthe peers of the three kingdoms, which is 3. 81 to a marriage, it isnecessary to add nearly six per cent. To the number of births given inthe English registers. But, if this addition be made, we shall have, in the counties of England, from Huntingdonshire to Worcestershireinclusive, 4. 30 births to a marriage or thereabouts: and the boastedcoincidence between the phenomena of propagation in France andEngland disappears at once. This is a curious specimen of Mr Sadler'sproficiency in the art of making excuses. In the same pamphlet hereasons as if the same registers were accurate to one in a thousand, andas if they were wrong at the very least by one in eighteen. 

He tries to show that we have not taken a fair criterion of thefecundity of the peers. We are not quite sure that we understand hisreasoning on this subject. The order of his observations is more thanusually confused, and the cloud of words more than usually thick. Wewill give the argument on which he seems to lay most stress in his ownwords:--

"But I shall first notice a far more obvious and important blunderinto which the Reviewer has fallen; or into which, I rather fear, heknowingly wishes to precipitate his readers, since I have distinctlypointed out what ought to have preserved him from it in the very chapterhe is criticising and contradicting. It is this:--he has entirelyomitted 'counting' the sterile marriages of all those peerages whichhave become extinct during the very period his counting embraces. Hecounts, for instance, Earl Fitzwilliam, his marriages, and heir; but hashe not omitted to enumerate the marriages of those branches of the samenoble house, which have become extinct since that venerable individualpossessed his title? He talks of my having appealed merely to theextinction of peerages in my argument; but, on his plan of computation, extinctions are perpetually and wholly lost sight of. In computingthe average prolificness of the marriages of the nobles, he positivelycounts from a select class of them only, one from which the unprolificare constantly weeded, and regularly disappear; and he thus comes to theconclusion, that the peers are 'an eminently prolific class!' Justas though a farmer should compute the rate of increase; not from thequantity of seed sown, but from that part of it only which comes toperfection, entirely omitting all which had failed to spring up or cometo maturity. Upon this principle the most scanty crop ever obtained, inwhich the husbandman should fail to receive 'seed again, ' as the phraseis, might be so 'counted' as to appear 'eminently prolific' indeed. "

If we understand this passage rightly, it decisively proves that MrSadler is incompetent to perform even the lowest offices of statisticalresearch. What shadow of reason is there to believe that the peers whowere alive in the year 1828 differed as to their prolificness from anyother equally numerous set of peers taken at random? In what sense werethe peers who were alive in 1828 analogous to that part of the seedwhich comes to perfection? Did we entirely omit all that failed? On thecontrary, we counted the sterile as well as the fruitful marriages ofall the peers of the United Kingdom living at one time. In what way werethe peers who were alive in 1828 a select class? In what way were thesterile weeded from among them? Did every peer who had been marriedwithout having issue die in 1827? What shadow of reason is there tosuppose that there was not the ordinary proportion of barren marriagesamong the marriages contracted by the noblemen whose names are inDebrett's last edition? But we ought, says Mr Sadler, to have countedall the sterile marriages of all the peers "whose titles had becomeextinct during the period which our counting embraced;" that is to say, since the earliest marriage contracted by any peer living in 1828. Wassuch a proposition ever heard of before? Surely we were bound to do nosuch thing, unless at the same time we had counted also the childrenborn from all the fruitful marriages contracted by peers during the sameperiod. Mr Sadler would have us divide the number of children born topeers living in 1828, not by the number of marriages which those peerscontracted, but by the number of marriages which those peers contractedadded to a crowd of marriages selected, on account of their sterility, from among the noble marriages which have taken place during the lastfifty years. Is this the way to obtain fair averages? We might as wellrequire that all the noble marriages which during the last fifty yearshave produced ten children apiece should be added to those of the peersliving in 1828. The proper way to ascertain whether a set of people beprolific or sterile is, not to take marriages selected from themass either on account of their fruitfulness or on account of theirsterility, but to take a collection of marriages which there is noreason to think either more or less fruitful than others. What reason isthere to think that the marriages contracted by the peers who were alivein 1828 were more fruitful than those contracted by the peers who werealive in 1800 or in 1750?

We will add another passage from Mr Sadler's pamphlet on this subject. We attributed the extinction of peerages partly to the fact that thosehonours are for the most part limited to heirs male. 

"This is a discovery indeed! Peeresses 'eminently prolific, ' do not, as Macbeth conjured his spouse, 'bring forth men-children only;' theyactually produce daughters as well as sons!! Why, does not the Reviewersee, that so long as the rule of nature, which proportions the sexes soaccurately to each other, continues to exist, a tendency to a diminutionin one sex proves, as certainly as the demonstration of any mathematicalproblem, a tendency to a diminution in both; but to talk of 'eminentlyprolific' peeresses, and still maintain that the rapid extinction inpeerages is owing to their not bearing male children exclusively, isarrant nonsense. "

Now, if there be any proposition on the face of the earth which weshould not have expected to hear characterised as arrant nonsense, itis this, --that an honour limited to males alone is more likely tobecome extinct than an honour which, like the crown of England, descendsindifferently to sons and daughters. We have heard, nay, we actuallyknow families, in which, much as Mr Sadler may marvel at it, there aredaughters and no sons. Nay, we know many such families. We are as muchinclined as Mr Sadler to trace the benevolent and wise arrangements ofProvidence in the physical world, when once we are satisfied as tothe facts on which we proceed. And we have always considered it asan arrangement deserving of the highest admiration, that, though infamilies the number of males and females differs widely, yet in greatcollections of human beings the disparity almost disappears. The chanceundoubtedly is, that in a thousand marriages the number of daughterswill not very much exceed the number of sons. But the chance also is, that several of those marriages will produce daughters, and daughtersonly. In every generation of the peerage there are several such cases. When a peer whose title is limited to male heirs dies, leavingonly daughters, his peerage must expire, unless he have, not onlya collateral heir, but a collateral heir descended through anuninterrupted line of males from the first possessor of the honour. Ifthe deceased peer was the first nobleman of his family, then, by thesupposition, his peerage will become extinct. If he was the second, itwill become extinct, unless he leaves a brother or a brother's son. Ifthe second peer had a brother, the first peer must have had at least twosons; and this is more than the average number of sons to a marriage inEngland. When, therefore, it is considered how many peerages are in thefirst and second generation, it will not appear strange that extinctionsshould frequently take place. There are peerages which descend tofemales as well as males. But, in such cases, if a peer dies, leavingonly daughters, the very fecundity of the marriage is a cause of theextinction of the peerage. If there were only one daughter, the honourwould descend. If there are several, it falls into abeyance. 

But it is needless to multiply words in a case so clear; and, indeed itis needless to say anything more about Mr Sadler's book. We have, if wedo not deceive ourselves, completely exposed the calculations on whichhis theory rests; and we do not think that we should either amuse ourreaders or serve the cause of science if we were to rebut in successiona series of futile charges brought in the most angry spirit againstourselves; ignorant imputations of ignorance, and unfair complaints ofunfairness, --conveyed in long, dreary, declamations, so prolix that wecannot find space to quote them, and so confused that we cannot ventureto abridge them. 

There is much indeed in this foolish pamphlet to laugh at, from themotto in the first page down to some wisdom about cows in the last. Onepart of it indeed is solemn enough, we mean a certain jeu d'esprit ofMr Sadler's touching a tract of Dr Arbuthnot's. This is indeed "verytragical mirth, " as Peter Quince's playbill has it; and we would notadvise any person who reads for amusement to venture on it as long as hecan procure a volume of the Statutes at Large. This, however, to doMr Sadler justice, is an exception. His witticisms, and his tables offigures, constitute the only parts of his work which can be perused withperfect gravity. His blunders are diverting, his excuses exquisitelycomic. But his anger is the most grotesque exhibition that we ever saw. He foams at the mouth with the love of truth, and vindicates the Divinebenevolence with a most edifying heartiness of hatred. On this subjectwe will give him one word of parting advice. If he raves in this way toease his mind, or because he thinks that he does himself credit by it, or from a sense of religious duty, far be it from us to interfere. Hispeace, his reputation, and his religion are his own concern; and he, like the nobleman to whom his treatise is dedicated, has a right to dowhat he will with his own. But, if he has adopted his abusive style froma notion that it would hurt our feelings, we must inform him that he isaltogether mistaken; and that he would do well in future to give us hisarguments, if he has any, and to keep his anger for those who fear it. 

*****

MIRABEAU. (July 1832. )

 "Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, et sur les deux Premieres Assemblees Legislatives". Par Etienne Dumont, de Geneve: ouvrage posthume publie par M. J. L. Duval, Membre du Conseil Representatif du Canton du Geneve. 8vo. Paris: 1832. 

This is a very amusing and a very instructive book: but even if it wereless amusing and less instructive, it would still be interesting as arelic of a wise and virtuous man. M. Dumont was one of those persons, the care of whose fame belongs in an especial manner to mankind. For hewas one of those persons who have, for the sake of mankind, neglectedthe care of their own fame. In his walk through life there was noobtrusiveness, no pushing, no elbowing, none of the little arts whichbring forward little men. With every right to the head of the board, hetook the lowest room, and well deserved to be greeted with--Friend, goup higher. Though no man was more capable of achieving for himselfa separate and independent renown, he attached himself to others; helaboured to raise their fame; he was content to receive as his share ofthe reward the mere overflowings which redounded from the full measureof their glory. Not that he was of a servile and idolatrous habit ofmind:--not that he was one of the tribe of Boswells, --those literaryGibeonites, born to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the higherintellectual castes. Possessed of talents and acquirements which madehim great, he wished only to be useful. In the prime of manhood, at thevery time of life at which ambitious men are most ambitious, he was notsolicitous to proclaim that he furnished information, arguments, andeloquence to Mirabeau. In his later years he was perfectly willing thathis renown should merge in that of Mr Bentham. 

The services which M. Dumont has rendered to society can be fullyappreciated only by those who have studied Mr Bentham's works, both intheir rude and in their finished state. The difference both for show andfor use is as great as the difference between a lump of golden ore and arouleau of sovereigns fresh from the mint. Of Mr Bentham we would at alltimes speak with the reverence which is due to a great originalthinker, and to a sincere and ardent friend of the human race. If afew weaknesses were mingled with his eminent virtues, --if a fewerrors insinuated themselves among the many valuable truths which hetaught, --this is assuredly no time for noticing those weaknesses orthose errors in an unkind or sarcastic spirit. A great man has gone fromamong us, full of years, of good works, and of deserved honours. In someof the highest departments in which the human intellect can exertitself he has not left his equal or his second behind him. From hiscontemporaries he has had, according to the usual lot, more or less thanjustice. He has had blind flatterers and blind detractors--flattererswho could see nothing but perfection in his style, detractors whocould see nothing but nonsense in his matter. He will now have judges. Posterity will pronounce its calm and impartial decision; and thatdecision will, we firmly believe, place in the same rank with Galileo, and with Locke, the man who found jurisprudence a gibberish and left ita science. Never was there a literary partnership so fortunate as thatof Mr Bentham and M. Dumont. The raw material which Mr Bentham furnishedwas most precious; but it was unmarketable. He was, assuredly, at once agreat logician and a great rhetorician. But the effect of his logic wasinjured by a vicious arrangement, and the effect of his rhetoric by avicious style. His mind was vigorous, comprehensive, subtile, fertile ofarguments, fertile of illustrations. But he spoke in an unknown tongue;and, that the congregation might be edified, it was necessary that somebrother having the gift of interpretation should expound the invaluablejargon. His oracles were of high import; but they were traced onleaves and flung loose to the wind. So negligent was he of the arts ofselection, distribution, and compression, that to persons who formedtheir judgment of him from his works in their undigested state he seemedto be the least systematic of all philosophers. The truth is, thathis opinions formed a system, which, whether sound or unsound, is moreexact, more entire, and more consistent with itself than any other. Yetto superficial readers of his works in their original form, and indeedto all readers of those works who did not bring great industry and greatacuteness to the study, he seemed to be a man of a quick and ingeniousbut ill-regulated mind, --who saw truth only by glimpses, --who threwout many striking hints, but who had never thought of combining hisdoctrines in one harmonious whole. 

M. Dumont was admirably qualified to supply what was wanting in MrBentham. In the qualities in which the French writers surpass thoseof all other nations--neatness, clearness, precision, condensation--hesurpassed all French writers. If M. Dumont had never been born, MrBentham would still have been a very great man. But he would have beengreat to himself alone. The fertility of his mind would have resembledthe fertility of those vast American wildernesses in which blossoms anddecays a rich but unprofitable vegetation, "wherewith the reaper fillethnot his hand, neither he that bindeth up the sheaves his bosom. " Itwould have been with his discoveries as it has been with the "Centuryof Inventions. " His speculations on laws would have been of no morepractical use than Lord Worcester's speculations on steam-engines. Somegenerations hence, perhaps, when legislation had found its Watt, anantiquarian might have published to the world the curious fact that, inthe reign of George the Third, there had been a man called Bentham, whohad given hints of many discoveries made since his time, and who hadreally, for his age, taken a most philosophical view of the principlesof jurisprudence. 

Many persons have attempted to interpret between this powerful mind andthe public. But, in our opinion, M. Dumont alone has succeeded. It isremarkable that, in foreign countries, where Mr Bentham's works areknown solely through the medium of the French version, his merit isalmost universally acknowledged. Even those who are most decidedlyopposed to his political opinions--the very chiefs of the HolyAlliance--have publicly testified their respect for him. In England, on the contrary, many persons who certainly entertained no prejudiceagainst him on political grounds were long in the habit of mentioninghim contemptuously. Indeed, what was said of Bacon's philosophy may besaid of Bentham's. It was in little repute among us, till judgments inits favour came from beyond sea, and convinced us, to our shame, that wehad been abusing and laughing at one of the greatest men of the age. 

M. Dumont might easily have found employments more gratifying topersonal vanity than that of arranging works not his own. But he couldhave found no employment more useful or more truly honourable. The bookbefore us, hastily written as it is, contains abundant proof, if proofwere needed, that he did not become an editor because he wanted thetalents which would have made him eminent as a writer. 

Persons who hold democratical opinions, and who have been accustomedto consider M. Dumont as one of their party, have been surprised andmortified to learn that he speaks with very little respect of theFrench Revolution and of its authors. Some zealous Tories have naturallyexpressed great satisfaction at finding their doctrines, in somerespects, confirmed by the testimony of an unwilling witness. The dateof the work, we think, explains everything. If it had been written tenyears earlier, or twenty years later, it would have been very differentfrom what it is. It was written, neither during the first excitementof the Revolution, nor at that later period when the practical goodproduced by the Revolution had become manifest to the most prejudicedobservers; but in those wretched times when the enthusiasm had abated, and the solid advantages were not yet fully seen. It was written in theyear 1799, --a year in which the most sanguine friend of liberty mightwell feel some misgivings as to the effects of what the NationalAssembly had done. The evils which attend every great change hadbeen severely felt. The benefit was still to come. The price--a heavyprice--had been paid. The thing purchased had not yet been delivered. Europe was swarming with French exiles. The fleets and armies of thesecond coalition were victorious. Within France, the reign of terror wasover; but the reign of law had not commenced. There had been, indeed, during three or four years, a written Constitution, by which rightswere defined and checks provided. But these rights had been repeatedlyviolated; and those checks had proved utterly inefficient. The lawswhich had been framed to secure the distinct authority of theexecutive magistrates and of the legislative assemblies--the freedom ofelection--the freedom of debate--the freedom of the press--the personalfreedom of citizens--were a dead letter. The ordinary mode in whichthe Republic was governed was by coups d'etat. On one occasion, thelegislative councils were placed under military restraint by thedirectors. Then, again, directors were deposed by the legislativecouncils. Elections were set aside by the executive authority. Ship-loads of writers and speakers were sent, without a legal trial, to die of fever in Guiana. France, in short, was in that state in whichrevolutions, effected by violence, almost always leave a nation. Thehabit of obedience had been lost. The spell of prescription had beenbroken. Those associations on which, far more than on any argumentsabout property and order, the authority of magistrates rests, hadcompletely passed away. The power of the government consisted merely inthe physical force which it could bring to its support. Moral force ithad none. It was itself a government sprung from a recent convulsion. Its own fundamental maxim was, that rebellion might be justifiable. Itsown existence proved that rebellion might be successful. The peoplehad been accustomed, during several years, to offer resistance to theconstituted authorities on the slightest provocation, and to see theconstituted authorities yield to that resistance. The whole politicalworld was "without form and void"--an incessant whirl of hostile atoms, which, every moment, formed some new combination. The only man who couldfix the agitated elements of society in a stable form was following awild vision of glory and empire through the Syrian deserts. The time wasnot yet come, when

 "Confusion heard his voice; and wild uproar Stood ruled:"

when, out of the chaos into which the old society had been resolved, were to rise a new dynasty, a new peerage, a new church, and a new code. 

The dying words of Madame Roland, "Oh, Liberty! how many crimes arecommitted in thy name!" were at that time echoed by many of themost upright and benevolent of mankind. M. Guizot has, in one of hisadmirable pamphlets, happily and justly described M. Laine as "an honestand liberal man, discouraged by the Revolution. " This description, atthe time when M. Dumont's Memoirs were written, would have applied toalmost every honest and liberal man in Europe; and would, beyond alldoubt, have applied to M. Dumont himself. To that fanatical worshipof the all-wise and all-good people, which had been common a few yearsbefore, had succeeded an uneasy suspicion that the follies and vicesof the people would frustrate all attempts to serve them. The wild andjoyous exaltation, with which the meeting of the States-General and thefall of the Bastile had been hailed, had passed away. In its placewas dejection, and a gloomy distrust of suspicious appearances. Thephilosophers and philanthropists had reigned. And what had their reignproduced? Philosophy had brought with it mummeries as absurd as anywhich had been practised by the most superstitious zealot of the darkestage. Philanthropy had brought with it crimes as horrible as the massacreof Saint Bartholomew. This was the emancipation of the human mind. Thesewere the fruits of the great victory of reason over prejudice. Francehad rejected the faith of Pascal and Descartes as a nursery fable, thata courtezan might be her idol, and a madman her priest. She had assertedher freedom against Louis, that she might bow down before Robespierre. For a time men thought that all the boasted wisdom of the eighteenthcentury was folly; and that those hopes of great political and socialameliorations which had been cherished by Voltaire and Condorcet wereutterly delusive. 

Under the influence of these feelings, M. Dumont has gone so far asto say that the writings of Mr Burke on the French Revolution, thoughdisfigured by exaggeration, and though containing doctrines subversiveof all public liberty, had been, on the whole, justified by events, andhad probably saved Europe from great disasters. That such a man as thefriend and fellow-labourer of Mr Bentham should have expressed suchan opinion is a circumstance which well deserves the consideration ofuncharitable politicians. These Memoirs have not convinced us that theFrench Revolution was not a great blessing to mankind. But they haveconvinced us that very great indulgence is due to those who, while theRevolution was actually taking place, regarded it with unmixed aversionand horror. We can perceive where their error lay. We can perceive thatthe evil was temporary, and the good durable. But we cannot be surethat, if our lot had been cast in their times, we should not, like them, have been discouraged and disgusted--that we should not, like them, have seen, in that great victory of the French people, only insanity andcrime. 

It is curious to observe how some men are applauded, and others reviled, for merely being what all their neighbours are, --for merely goingpassively down the stream of events, --for merely representing theopinions and passions of a whole generation. The friends of populargovernment ordinarily speak with extreme severity of Mr Pitt, and withrespect and tenderness of Mr Canning. Yet the whole difference, wesuspect, consisted merely in this, --that Mr Pitt died in 1806, and MrCanning in 1827. During the years which were common to the public lifeof both, Mr Canning was assuredly not a more liberal statesman than hispatron. The truth is that Mr Pitt began his political life at the endof the American War, when the nation was suffering from the effects ofcorruption. He closed it in the midst of the calamities produced by theFrench Revolution, when the nation was still strongly impressed with thehorrors of anarchy. He changed, undoubtedly. In his youth he had broughtin reform bills. In his manhood he brought in gagging bills. But thechange, though lamentable, was, in our opinion, perfectly natural, andmight have been perfectly honest. He changed with the great body of hiscountrymen. Mr Canning on the other hand, entered into public life whenEurope was in dread of the Jacobins. He closed his public life whenEurope was suffering under the tyranny of the Holy Alliance. He, too, changed with the nation. As the crimes of the Jacobins had turned themaster into something very like a Tory, the events which followed theCongress of Vienna turned the pupil into something very like a Whig. 

So much are men the creatures of circumstances. We see that, if M. Dumont had died in 1799, he would have died, to use the new cant word, a decided "Conservative. " If Mr Pitt had lived in 1832, it is our firmbelief that he would have been a decided Reformer. 

The judgment passed by M. Dumont in this work on the French Revolutionmust be taken with considerable allowances. It resembles a criticism ona play of which only the first act has been performed, or on a buildingfrom which the scaffolding has not yet been taken down. We have no doubtthat, if the excellent author had revised these Memoirs thirty yearsafter the time at which they were written, he would have seen reason toomit a few passages, and to add many qualifications and explanations. 

He would not probably have been inclined to retract the censures, just, though severe, which he has passed on the ignorance, the presumption, and the pedantry, of the National Assembly. But he would have admittedthat, in spite of those faults, perhaps even by reason of those faults, that Assembly had conferred inestimable benefits on mankind. It is clearthat, among the French of that day, political knowledge was absolutelyin its infancy. It would indeed have been strange if it had attainedmaturity in the time of censors, of lettres-de-cachet, and of beds ofjustice. The electors did not know how to elect. The representativesdid not know how to deliberate. M. Dumont taught the constituent body ofMontreuil how to perform their functions, and found them apt to learn. He afterwards tried, in concert with Mirabeau, to instruct the NationalAssembly in that admirable system of Parliamentary tactics which hasbeen long established in the English House of Commons, and whichhas made the House of Commons, in spite of all the defects in itscomposition, the best and fairest debating society in the world. Butthese accomplished legislators, though quite as ignorant as the mob ofMontreuil, proved much less docile, and cried out that they did notwant to go to school to the English. Their debates consisted of endlesssuccessions of trashy pamphlets, all beginning with something about theoriginal compact of society, man in the hunting state, and other suchfoolery. They sometimes diversified and enlivened these long readings bya little rioting. They bawled; they hooted; they shook their fists. Theykept no order among themselves. They were insulted with impunity bythe crowd which filled their galleries. They gave long and solemnconsideration to trifles. They hurried through the most importantresolutions with fearful expedition. They wasted months in quibblingabout the words of that false and childish Declaration of Rights onwhich they professed to found their new constitution, and which was atirreconcilable variance with every clause of that constitution. Theyannihilated in a single night privileges, many of which partook of thenature of property, and ought therefore to have been most delicatelyhandled. 

They are called the Constituent Assembly. Never was a name lessappropriate. They were not constituent, but the very reverse ofconstituent. They constituted nothing that stood or that deserved tolast. They had not, and they could not possibly have, the informationor the habits of mind which are necessary for the framing of that mostexquisite of all machines--a government. The metaphysical cant withwhich they prefaced their constitution has long been the scoff ofall parties. Their constitution itself, --that constitution whichthey described as absolutely perfect, and to which they predictedimmortality, --disappeared in a few months, and left no trace behind it. They were great only in the work of destruction. 

The glory of the National Assembly is this, that they were in truth, what Mr Burke called them in austere irony, the ablest architects ofruin that ever the world saw. They were utterly incompetent to performany work which required a discriminating eye and a skilful hand. But thework which was then to be done was a work of devastation. They hadto deal with abuses so horrible and so deeply rooted that the highestpolitical wisdom could scarcely have produced greater good to mankindthan was produced by their fierce and senseless temerity. Demolitionis undoubtedly a vulgar task; the highest glory of the statesman is toconstruct. But there is a time for everything, --a time to set up, and atime to pull down. The talents of revolutionary leaders and those of thelegislator have equally their use and their season. It is thenatural, the almost universal, law, that the age of insurrections andproscriptions shall precede the age of good government, of temperateliberty, and liberal order. 

And how should it be otherwise? It is not in swaddling-bands thatwe learn to walk. It is not in the dark that we learn to distinguishcolours. It is not under oppression that we learn how to use freedom. The ordinary sophism by which misrule is defended is, when trulystated, this:--The people must continue in slavery, because slavery hasgenerated in them all the vices of slaves. Because they are ignorant, they must remain under a power which has made and which keeps themignorant. Because they have been made ferocious by misgovernment, theymust be misgoverned for ever. If the system under which they live wereso mild and liberal that under its operation they had become humaneand enlightened, it would be safe to venture on a change. But, as thissystem has destroyed morality, and prevented the development of theintellect, --as it has turned men, who might under different traininghave formed a virtuous and happy community, into savage and stupid wildbeasts, --therefore it ought to last for ever. The English Revolution, it is said, was truly a glorious Revolution. Practical evils wereredressed; no excesses were committed; no sweeping confiscations tookplace; the authority of the laws was scarcely for a moment suspended;the fullest and freest discussion was tolerated in Parliament; thenation showed, by the calm and temperate manner in which it asserted itsliberty, that it was fit to enjoy liberty. The French Revolution was, on the other hand, the most horrible event recorded in history, --allmadness and wickedness, --absurdity in theory, and atrocity in practice. What folly and injustice in the revolutionary laws! What grotesqueaffectation in the revolutionary ceremonies! What fanaticism! Whatlicentiousness! What cruelty! Anacharsis Clootz and Marat, --feasts ofthe Supreme Being, and marriages of the Loire--trees of liberty, andheads dancing on pikes--the whole forms a kind of infernal farce, madeup of everything ridiculous, and everything frightful. This it is togive freedom to those who have neither wisdom nor virtue. 

It is not only by bad men interested in the defence of abuses thatarguments like these have been urged against all schemes of politicalimprovement. Some of the highest and purest of human beings conceivedsuch scorn and aversion for the follies and crimes of the FrenchRevolution that they recanted, in the moment of triumph, those liberalopinions to which they had clung in defiance of persecution. And, ifwe inquire why it was that they began to doubt whether liberty were ablessing, we shall find that it was only because events had proved, inthe clearest manner, that liberty is the parent of virtue and of order. They ceased to abhor tyranny merely because it had been signally shownthat the effect of tyranny on the hearts and understandings of men ismore demoralising and more stupifying than had ever been imagined bythe most zealous friend of popular rights. The truth is, that a strongerargument against the old monarchy of France may be drawn from thenoyades and the fusillades than from the Bastile and the Parc-aux-cerfs. We believe it to be a rule without an exception, that the violence of arevolution corresponds to the degree of misgovernment which hasproduced that revolution. Why was the French Revolution so bloody anddestructive? Why was our revolution of 1641 comparatively mild? Why wasour revolution of 1688 milder still? Why was the American Revolution, considered as an internal movement, the mildest of all? There is anobvious and complete solution of the problem. The English under Jamesthe First and Charles the First were less oppressed than the Frenchunder Louis the Fifteenth and Louis the Sixteenth. The English were lessoppressed after the Restoration than before the great Rebellion. AndAmerica under George the Third was less oppressed than England underthe Stuarts. The reaction was exactly proportioned to the pressure, --thevengeance to the provocation. 

When Mr Burke was reminded in his later years of the zeal which he haddisplayed in the cause of the Americans, he vindicated himself from thecharge of inconsistency, by contrasting the wisdom and moderation of theColonial insurgents of 1776 with the fanaticism and wickedness of theJacobins of 1792. He was in fact bringing an argument a fortiori againsthimself. The circumstances on which he rested his vindication fullyproved that the old government of France stood in far more need ofa complete change than the old government of America. The differencebetween Washington and Robespierre, --the difference between Franklin andBarere, --the difference between the destruction of a few barrels oftea and the confiscation of thousands of square miles, --the differencebetween the tarring and feathering of a tax-gatherer and the massacresof September, --measure the difference between the government of Americaunder the rule of England and the government of France under the rule ofthe Bourbons. 

Louis the Sixteenth made great voluntary concessions to his people;and they sent him to the scaffold. Charles the Tenth violated thefundamental laws of the state, established a despotism, and butcheredhis subjects for not submitting quietly to that despotism. He failed inhis wicked attempt. He was at the mercy of those whom he had injured. The pavements of Paris were still heaped up in barricades;--thehospitals were still full of the wounded;--the dead were stillunburied;--a thousand families were in mourning;--a hundred thousandcitizens were in arms. The crime was recent;--the life of the criminalwas in the hands of the sufferers;--and they touched not one hair of hishead. In the first revolution, victims were sent to death by scores forthe most trifling acts proved by the lowest testimony, before the mostpartial tribunals. After the second revolution, those ministers who hadsigned the ordinances, those ministers, whose guilt, as it was of thefoulest kind, was proved by the clearest evidence, --were punished onlywith imprisonment. In the first revolution, property was attacked. Inthe second, it was held sacred. Both revolutions, it is true, leftthe public mind of France in an unsettled state. Both revolutions werefollowed by insurrectionary movements. But, after the first revolution, the insurgents were almost always stronger than the law; and, since thesecond revolution, the law has invariably been found stronger than theinsurgents. There is, indeed, much in the present state of France whichmay well excite the uneasiness of those who desire to see her free, happy, powerful, and secure. Yet, if we compare the present state ofFrance with the state in which she was forty years ago, how vast achange for the better has taken place! How little effect, for example, during the first revolution, would the sentence of a judicial bodyhave produced on an armed and victorious partty! If, after the 10th ofAugust, or after the proscription of the Gironde, or after the 9th ofThermidor, or after the carnage of Vendemiaire, or after the arrests ofFructidor, any tribunal had decided against the conquerors in favour ofthe conquered, with what contempt, with what derision, would its awardhave been received! The judges would have lost their heads, or wouldhave been sent to die in some unwholesome colony. The fate of the victimwhom they had endeavoured to save would only have been made darker andmore hopeless by their interference. We have lately seen a signal proofthat, in France, the law is now stronger than the sword. We have seen agovernment, in the very moment of triumph and revenge, submitting itselfto the authority of a court of law. A just and independent sentencehas been pronounced--a sentence worthy of the ancient renown ofthat magistracy to which belong the noblest recollections of Frenchhistory--which, in an age of persecutors, produced L'Hopital, --which, in an age of courtiers, produced D'Aguesseau, --which, in an age ofwickedness and madness, exhibited to mankind a pattern of every virtuein the life and in the death of Malesherbes. The respectful manner inwhich that sentence has been received is alone sufficient to show howwidely the French of this generation differ from their fathers. And howis the difference to be explained? The race, the soil, the climate, arethe same. If those dull, honest Englishmen, who explain the events of1793 and 1794 by saying that the French are naturally frivolous andcruel, were in the right, why is the guillotine now standing idle?Not surely for want of Carlists, of aristocrats, of people guilty ofincivism, of people suspected of being suspicious characters. Is not thetrue explanation this, that the Frenchman of 1832 has been far bettergoverned than the Frenchman of 1789, --that his soul has never beengalled by the oppressive privileges of a separate caste, --that he hasbeen in some degree accustomed to discuss political questions, andto perform political functions, --that he has lived for seventeen oreighteen years under institutions which, however defective, have yetbeen far superior to any institutions that had before existed in France?

As the second French Revolution has been far milder than the first, so that great change which has just been effected in England hasbeen milder even than the second French Revolution, --milder than anyrevolution recorded in history. Some orators have described thereform of the House of Commons as a revolution. Others have denied thepropriety of the term. The question, though in seeming merely aquestion of definition, suggests much curious and interesting matter forreflection. If we look at the magnitude of the reform, it may wellbe called a revolution. If we look at the means by which it has beeneffected, it is merely an Act of Parliament, regularly brought in, read, committed, and passed. In the whole history of England, there is noprouder circumstance than this, --that a change, which could not, in anyother age, or in any other country, have been effected without physicalviolence, should here have been effected by the force of reason, and under the forms of law. The work of three civil wars has beenaccomplished by three sessions of Parliament. An ancient and deeplyrooted system of abuses has been fiercely attacked and stubbornlydefended. It has fallen; and not one sword has been drawn; not oneestate has been confiscated; not one family has been forced to emigrate. The bank has kept its credit. The funds have kept their price. Every manhas gone forth to his work and to his labour till the evening. Duringthe fiercest excitement of the contest, --during the first fortnight ofthat immortal May, --there was not one moment at which any sanguinaryact committed on the person of any of the most unpopular men in Englandwould not have filled the country with horror and indignation. 

And now that the victory is won, has it been abused? An immense massof power has been transferred from an oligarchy to the nation. Arethe members of the vanquished oligarchy insecure? Does the nation seemdisposed to play the tyrant? Are not those who, in any other state ofsociety, would have been visited with the severest vengeance of thetriumphant party, --would have been pining in dungeons, or flying toforeign countries, --still enjoying their possessions and their honours, still taking part as freely as ever in public affairs? Two years agothey were dominant. They are now vanquished. Yet the whole people wouldregard with horror any man who should dare to propose any vindictivemeasure. So common is this feeling, --so much is it a matter of courseamong us, --that many of our readers will scarcely understand what we seeto admire in it. 

To what are we to attribute the unparalleled moderation and humanitywhich the English people had displayed at this great conjuncture? Theanswer is plain. This moderation, this humanity, are the fruits of ahundred and fifty years of liberty. During many generations we have hadlegislative assemblies which, however defective their constitution mightbe, have always contained many members chosen by the people, and manyothers eager to obtain the approbation of the people:--assemblies inwhich perfect freedom of debate was allowed;--assemblies in which thesmallest minority had a fair hearing; assemblies in which abuses, even when they were not redressed, were at least exposed. For manygenerations we have had the trial by jury, the Habeas Corpus Act, thefreedom of the press, the right of meeting to discuss public affairs, the right of petitioning the legislature. A vast portion of thepopulation has long been accustomed to the exercise of politicalfunctions, and has been thoroughly seasoned to political excitement. In most other countries there is no middle course between absolutesubmission and open rebellion. In England there has always been forcenturies a constitutional opposition. Thus our institutions had been sogood that they had educated us into a capacity for better institutions. There is not a large town in the kingdom which does not contain bettermaterials for a legislature than all France could furnish in 1789. Thereis not a spouting-club at any pot-house in London in which the rules ofdebate are not better understood, and more strictly observed, than inthe Constituent Assembly. There is scarcely a Political Union whichcould not frame in half an hour a declaration of rights superior to thatwhich occupied the collective wisdom of France for several months. 

It would be impossible even to glance at all the causes of the FrenchRevolution within the limits to which we must confine ourselves. Onething is clear. The government, the aristocracy, and the church wererewarded after their works. They reaped that which they had sown. Theyfound the nation such as they had made it. That the people had becomepossessed of irresistible power before they had attained the slightestknowledge of the art of government--that practical questions of vastmoment were left to be solved by men to whom politics had been onlymatter of theory--that a legislature was composed of persons who werescarcely fit to compose a debating society--that the whole nation wasready to lend an ear to any flatterer who appealed to its cupidity, toits fears, or to its thirst for vengeance--all this was the effect ofmisrule, obstinately continued in defiance of solemn warnings, and ofthe visible signs of an approaching retribution. 

Even while the monarchy seemed to be in its highest and most palmystate, the causes of that great destruction had already begun tooperate. They may be distinctly traced even under the reign of Louis theFourteenth. That reign is the time to which the Ultra-Royalists referas the Golden Age of France. It was in truth one of those periods whichshine with an unnatural and delusive splendour, and which are rapidlyfollowed by gloom and decay. 

Concerning Louis the Fourteenth himself, the world seems at last tohave formed a correct judgment. He was not a great general; he was nota great statesman; but he was, in one sense of the words, a great king. Never was there so consummate a master of what our James the First wouldhave called kingcraft, --of all those arts which most advantageouslydisplay the merits of a prince, and most completely hide his defects. Though his internal administration was bad, --though the militarytriumphs which gave splendour to the early part of his reign were notachieved by himself, --though his later years were crowded with defeatsand humiliations, --though he was so ignorant that he scarcely understoodthe Latin of his mass-book, --though he fell under the control of acunning Jesuit and of a more cunning old woman, --he succeeded in passinghimself off on his people as a being above humanity. And this is themore extraordinary because he did not seclude himself from the publicgaze like those Oriental despots whose faces are never seen, and whosevery names it is a crime to pronounce lightly. It has been said that noman is a hero to his valet;--and all the world saw as much of Louis theFourteenth as his valet could see. Five hundred people assembled to seehim shave and put on his breeches in the morning. He then kneeled downat the side of his bed, and said his prayer while the whole assemblyawaited the end in solemn silence--the ecclesiastics on their knees, and the laymen with their hats before their faces. He walked abouthis gardens with a train of two hundred courtiers at his heels. AllVersailles came to see him dine and sup. He was put to bed at night inthe midst of a crowd as great as that which had met to see him rise inthe morning. He took his very emetics in state, and vomited majesticallyin the presence of all the grandes and petites entrees. Yet, though heconstantly exposed himself to the public gaze in situations in which itis scarcely possible for any man to preserve much personal dignity, heto the last impressed those who surrounded him with the deepest aweand reverence. The illusion which he produced on his worshippers canbe compared only to those illusions to which lovers are proverbiallysubject during the season of courtship. It was an illusion whichaffected even the senses. The contemporaries of Louis thought him tall. Voltaire, who might have seen him, and who had lived with some ofthe most distinguished members of his court, speaks repeatedly of hismajestic stature. Yet it is as certain as any fact can be, that he wasrather below than above the middle size. He had, it seems, a way ofholding himself, a way of walking, a way of swelling his chest andrearing his head, which deceived the eyes of the multitude. Eighty yearsafter his death, the royal cemetery was violated by the revolutionists, his coffin was opened; his body was dragged out; and it appeared thatthe prince, whose majestic figure had been so long and loudly extolled, was in truth a little man. (Even M. De Chateaubriand, to whom we shouldhave thought all the Bourbons would have seemed at least six feet high, admits this fact. "C'est une erreur, " says he in his strange memoirs ofthe Duke of Berri, "de croire que Louis XIV. Etait d'une haute stature. Une cuirasse qui nous reste de lui, et les exhumations de St Denys, n'ont laisse sur certain point aucun doute. ") That fine expressionof Juvenal is singularly applicable, both in its literal and in itsmetaphorical sense, to Louis the Fourteenth:

 "Mors sola fatetur Quantula sint hominum corpuscula. "

His person and his government have had the same fate. He had the art ofmaking both appear grand and august, in spite of the clearest evidencethat both were below the ordinary standard. Death and time have exposedboth the deceptions. The body of the great king has been measured morejustly than it was measured by the courtiers who were afraid to lookabove his shoe-tie. His public character has been scrutinized by menfree from the hopes and fears of Boileau and Moliere. In the grave, themost majestic of princes is only five feet eight. In history, the heroand the politician dwindles into a vain and feeble tyrant, --the slaveof priests and women--little in war, --little in government, --little ineverything but the art of simulating greatness. 

He left to his infant successor a famished and miserable people, abeaten and humbled army, provinces turned into deserts by misgovernmentand persecution, factions dividing the court, a schism raging in thechurch, an immense debt, an empty treasury, immeasurable palaces, aninnumerable household, inestimable jewels and furniture. All the sap andnutriment of the state seemed to have been drawn to feed one bloated andunwholesome excrescence. The nation was withered. The court was morbidlyflourishing. Yet it does not appear that the associations which attachedthe people to the monarchy had lost strength during his reign. He hadneglected or sacrificed their dearest interests; but he had strucktheir imaginations. The very things which ought to have made him mostunpopular, --the prodigies of luxury and magnificence with which hisperson was surrounded, while, beyond the inclosure of his parks, nothingwas to be seen but starvation and despair, --seemed to increase therespectful attachment which his subjects felt for him. That governmentsexist only for the good of the people, appears to be the most obviousand simple of all truths. Yet history proves that it is one of the mostrecondite. We can scarcely wonder that it should be so seldom presentto the minds of rulers, when we see how slowly, and through how muchsuffering, nations arrive at the knowledge of it. 

There was indeed one Frenchman who had discovered those principles whichit now seems impossible to miss, --that the many are not made for the useof one, --that the truly good government is not that which concentratesmagnificence in a court, but that which diffuses happiness among apeople, --that a king who gains victory after victory, and adds provinceto province, may deserve, not the admiration, but the abhorrence andcontempt of mankind. These were the doctrines which Fenelon taught. Considered as an epic poem, Telemachus can scarcely be placed aboveGlover's Leonidas or Wilkie's Epigoniad. Considered as a treatise onpolitics and morals, it abounds with errors of detail; and the truthswhich it inculcates seem trite to a modern reader. But, if we comparethe spirit in which it is written with the spirit which pervades therest of the French literature of that age, we shall perceive that, though in appearance trite, it was in truth one of the most originalworks that have ever appeared. The fundamental principles of Fenelon'spolitical morality, the test by which he judged of institutions and ofmen, were absolutely new to his countrymen. He had taught them indeed, with the happiest effect, to his royal pupil. But how incomprehensiblethey were to most people, we learn from Saint Simon. That amusingwriter tells us, as a thing almost incredible, that the Duke of Burgundydeclared it to be his opinion that kings existed for the good ofthe people, and not the people for the good of kings. Saint Simon isdelighted with the benevolence of this saying; but startled by itsnovelty and terrified by its boldness. Indeed he distinctly says that itwas not safe to repeat the sentiment in the court of Louis. Saint Simonwas, of all the members of that court, the least courtly. He was asnearly an oppositionist as any man of his time. His disposition wasproud, bitter, and cynical. In religion he was a Jansenist; in politics, a less hearty royalist than most of his neighbours. His opinions and histemper had preserved him from the illusions which the demeanour of Louisproduced on others. He neither loved nor respected the king. Yet eventhis man, --one of the most liberal men in France, --was struck dumbwith astonishment at hearing the fundamental axiom of all governmentpropounded, --an axiom which, in our time, nobody in England or Francewould dispute, --which the stoutest Tory takes for granted as much as thefiercest Radical, and concerning which the Carlist would agree with themost republican deputy of the "extreme left. " No person will do justiceto Fenelon, who does not constantly keep in mind that Telemachus waswritten in an age and nation in which bold and independent thinkersstared to hear that twenty millions of human beings did not existfor the gratification of one. That work is commonly considered as aschoolbook, very fit for children, because its style is easy and itsmorality blameless, but unworthy of the attention of statesmen andphilosophers. We can distinguish in it, if we are not greatly mistaken, the first faint dawn of a long and splendid day of intellectuallight, --the dim promise of a great deliverance, --the undeveloped germ ofthe charter and of the code. 

What mighty interests were staked on the life of the Duke of Burgundy!and how different an aspect might the history of France have borne if hehad attained the age of his grandfather or of his son;--if he had beenpermitted to show how much could be done for humanity by the highestvirtue in the highest fortune! There is scarcely anything in historymore remarkable than the descriptions which remain to us of thatextraordinary man. The fierce and impetuous temper which he showed inearly youth, --the complete change which a judicious education producedin his character, --his fervid piety, --his large benevolence, --thestrictness with which he judged himself, --the liberality with which hejudged others, --the fortitude with which alone, in the whole court, hestood up against the commands of Louis, when a religious scruplewas concerned, --the charity with which alone, in the whole court, he defended the profligate Orleans against calumniators, --his greatprojects for the good of the people, --his activity in business, --histaste for letters, --his strong domestic attachments, --even theungraceful person and the shy and awkward manner which concealed fromthe eyes of the sneering courtiers of his grandfather so many rareendowments, --make his character the most interesting that is to be foundin the annals of his house. He had resolved, if he came to the throne, to disperse that ostentatious court, which was supported at an expenseruinous to the nation, --to preserve peace, --to correct the abuses whichwere found in every part of the system of revenue, --to abolish or modifyoppressive privileges, --to reform the administration of justice, --torevive the institution of the States-General. If he had ruled overFrance during forty or fifty years, that great movement of the humanmind, which no government could have arrested, which bad governmentonly rendered more violent, would, we are inclined to think, have beenconducted, by peaceable means to a happy termination. 

Disease and sorrow removed from the world that wisdom and virtue ofwhich it was not worthy. During two generations France was ruled by menwho, with all the vices of Louis the Fourteenth, had none of the artby which that magnificent prince passed off his vices for virtues. Thepeople had now to see tyranny naked. That foul Duessa was strippedof her gorgeous ornaments. She had always been hideous; but a strangeenchantment had made her seem fair and glorious in the eyes of herwilling slaves. The spell was now broken; the deformity was mademanifest; and the lovers, lately so happy and so proud, turned awayloathing and horror-struck. 

First came the Regency. The strictness with which Louis had, towards theclose of his life, exacted from those around him an outward attention toreligious duties, produced an effect similar to that which the rigourof the Puritans had produced in England. It was the boast of Madame deMaintenon, in the time of her greatness, that devotion had become thefashion. A fashion indeed it was; and, like a fashion, it passed away. The austerity of the tyrant's old age had injured the morality of thehigher orders more than even the licentiousness of his youth. Not onlyhad he not reformed their vices, but, by forcing them to be hypocrites, he had shaken their belief in virtue. They had found it so easy toperform the grimace of piety, that it was natural for them to considerall piety as grimace. The times were changed. Pensions, regiments, andabbeys, were no longer to be obtained by regular confession and severepenance: and the obsequious courtiers, who had kept Lent like monksof La Trappe, and who had turned up the whites of their eyes at theedifying parts of sermons preached before the king, aspired to the titleof roue as ardently as they had aspired to that of devot; and went, during Passion Week, to the revels of the Palais Royal as readily asthey had formerly repaired to the sermons of Massillon. 

The Regent was in many respects the fac-simile of our Charles theSecond. Like Charles, he was a good-natured man, uttl destituteof sensibility. Like Charles, he had good natural talents, which adeplorable indolence rendered useless to the state. Like Charles, hethought all men corrupted and interested, and yet did not dislike themfor being so. His opinion of human nature was Gulliver's; but he did notregard human nature with Gulliver's horror. He thought that he and hisfellow-creatures were Yahoos; and he thought a Yahoo a very agreeablekind of animal. No princes were ever more social than Charles and Philipof Orleans: yet no princes ever had less capacity for friendship. Thetempers of these clever cynics were so easy, and their minds so languid, that habit supplied in them the place of affection, and made them thetools of people for whom they cared not one straw. In love, both weremere sensualists without delicacy or tenderness. In politics, both wereutterly careless of faith and of national honour. Charles shut up theExchequer. Philip patronised the System. The councils of Charles wereswayed by the gold of Barillon; the councils of Philip by the gold ofWalpole. Charles for private objects made war on Holland, the naturalally of England. Philip for private objects made war on the Spanishbranch of the house of Bourbon, the natural ally, indeed the creature ofFrance. Even in trifling circumstances the parallel might be carried on. Both these princes were fond of experimental philosophy, and passedin the laboratory much time which would have been more advantageouslypassed at the council-table. Both were more strongly attached to theirfemale relatives than to any other human being; and in both cases it wassuspected that this attachment was not perfectly innocent. In personalcourage, and in all the virtues which are connected with personalcourage, the Regent was indisputably superior to Charles. Indeed Charlesbut narrowly escaped the stain of cowardice. Philip was eminently brave, and, like most brave men, was generally open and sincere. Charles addeddissimulation to his other vices. 

The administration of the Regent was scarcely less pernicious, andinfinitely more scandalous, than that of the deceased monarch. It wasby magnificent public works, and by wars conducted on a gigantic scale, that Louis had brought distress on his people. The Regent aggravatedthat distress by frauds of which a lame duck on the stock-exchange wouldhave been ashamed. France, even while suffering under the most severecalamities, had reverenced the conqueror. She despised the swindler. 

When Orleans and the wretched Dubois had disappeared, the power passedto the Duke of Bourbon; a prince degraded in the public eye by theinfamously lucrative part which he had taken in the juggles of theSystem, and by the humility with which he bore the caprices of a looseand imperious woman. It seemed to be decreed that every branch of theroyal family should successively incur the abhorrence and contempt ofthe nation. 

Between the fall of the Duke of Bourbon and the death of Fleury, a fewyears of frugal and moderate government intervened. Then recommenced thedownward progress of the monarchy. Profligacy in the court, extravagancein the finances, schism in the church, faction in the Parliaments, unjust war terminated by ignominious peace, --all that indicates and allthat produces the ruin of great empires, make up the history of thatmiserable period. Abroad, the French were beaten and humbled everywhere, by land and by sea, on the Elbe and on the Rhine, in Asia and inAmerica. At home, they were turned over from vizier to vizier, and fromsultana to sultana, till they had reached that point beneath which therewas no lower abyss of infamy, --till the yoke of Maupeou had made thempine for Choiseul, --till Madame du Barri had taught them to regretMadame de Pompadour. 

But unpopular as the monarchy had become, the aristocracy was moreunpopular still; and not without reason. The tyranny of an individualis far more supportable than the tyranny of a caste. The old privilegeswere galling and hateful to the new wealth and the new knowledge. Everything indicated the approach of no common revolution, --of arevolution destined to change, not merely the form of government, but the distribution of property and the whole social system, --of arevolution the effects of which were to be felt at every fireside inFrance, --of a new Jaquerie, in which the victory was to remain withJaques bonhomme. In the van of the movement were the moneyed men and themen of letters, --the wounded pride of wealth, and the wounded pride ofintellect. An immense multitude, made ignorant and cruel by oppression, was raging in the rear. 

We greatly doubt whether any course which could have been pursued byLouis the Sixteenth could have averted a great convulsion. But we aresure that, if there was such a course, it was the course recommendedby M. Turgot. The church and the aristocracy, with that blindness todanger, that incapacity of believing that anything can be except whathas been, which the long possession of power seldom fails to generate, mocked at the counsel which might have saved them. They would not havereform; and they had revolution. They would not pay a small contributionin place of the odious corvees; and they lived to see their castlesdemolished, and their lands sold to strangers. They would not endureTurgot; and they were forced to endure Robespierre. 

Then the rulers of France, as if smitten with judicial blindness, plunged headlong into the American war. They thus committed at once twogreat errors. They encouraged the spirit of revolution. They augmentedat the same time those public burdens, the pressure of which isgenerally the immediate cause of revolutions. The event of the warcarried to the height the enthusiasm of speculative democrats. Thefinancial difficulties produced by the war carried to the heightthe discontent of that larger body of people who cared little abouttheories, and much about taxes. 

The meeting of the States-General was the signal for the explosion ofall the hoarded passions of a century. In that assembly, there wereundoubtedly very able men. But they had no practical knowledge of theart of government. All the great English revolutions have been conductedby practical statesmen. The French Revolution was conducted by merespeculators. Our constitution has never been so far behind the age as tohave become an object of aversion to the people. The English revolutionshave therefore been undertaken for the purpose of defending, correcting, and restoring, --never for the mere purpose of destroying. Our countrymenhave always, even in times of the greatest excitement, spoken reverentlyof the form of government under which they lived, and attacked only whatthey regarded as its corruptions. In the very act of innovating theyhave constantly appealed to ancient prescription; they have seldomlooked abroad for models; they have seldom troubled themselves withUtopian theories; they have not been anxious to prove that liberty is anatural right of men; they have been content to regard it as the lawfulbirthright of Englishmen. Their social contract is no fiction. Itis still extant on the original parchment, sealed with wax which wasaffixed at Runnymede, and attested by the lordly names of the Marischalsand Fitzherberts. No general arguments about the original equality ofmen, no fine stories out of Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos, haveever affected them so much as their own familiar words, --MagnaCharta, --Habeas Corpus, --Trial by Jury, --Bill of Rights. This part ofour national character has undoubtedly its disadvantages. An Englishmantoo often reasons on politics in the spirit rather of a lawyer than ofa philosopher. There is too often something narrow, something exclusive, something Jewish, if we may use the word, in his love of freedom. Heis disposed to consider popular rights as the special heritage of thechosen race to which he belongs. He is inclined rather to repel than toencourage the alien proselyte who aspires to a share of his privileges. Very different was the spirit of the Constituent Assembly. They hadnone of our narrowness; but they had none of our practical skill in themanagement of affairs. They did not understand how to regulate the orderof their own debates; and they thought themselves able to legislate forthe whole world. All the past was loathsome to them. All their agreeableassociations were connected with the future. Hopes were to them all thatrecollections are to us. In the institutions of their country they foundnothing to love or to admire. As far back as they could look, they sawonly the tyranny of one class and the degradation of another, --Frankand Gaul, knight and villein, gentleman and roturier. They hated themonarchy, the church, the nobility. They cared nothing for the States orthe Parliament. It was long the fashion to ascribe all the follies whichthey committed to the writings of the philosophers. We believe thatit was misrule, and nothing but misrule, that put the sting into thosewritings. It is not true that the French abandoned experience fortheories. They took up with theories because they had no experience ofgood government. It was because they had no charter that they rantedabout the original contract. As soon as tolerable institutions weregiven to them, they began to look to those institutions. In 1830 theirrallying cry was "Vive la Charte". In 1789 they had nothing but theoriesround which to rally. They had seen social distinctions only in abad form; and it was therefore natural that they should be deluded bysophisms about the equality of men. They had experienced so much evilfrom the sovereignty of kings that they might be excused for lending aready ear to those who preached, in an exaggerated form, the doctrine ofthe sovereignty of the people. 

The English, content with their own national recollections and names, have never sought for models in the institutions of Greece or Rome. TheFrench, having nothing in their own history to which they could lookback with pleasure, had recourse to the history of the great ancientcommonwealths: they drew their notions of those commonwealths, not fromcontemporary writers, but from romances written by pedantic moralistslong after the extinction of public liberty. They neglected Thucydidesfor Plutarch. Blind themselves, they took blind guides. They had noexperience of freedom; and they took their opinions concerning itfrom men who had no more experience of it than themselves, and whoseimaginations, inflamed by mystery and privation, exaggerated the unknownenjoyment;--from men who raved about patriotism without having ever hada country, and eulogised tyrannicide while crouching before tyrants. The maxim which the French legislators learned in this school was, thatpolitical liberty is an end, and not a means; that it is not merelyvaluable as the great safeguard of order, of property, and of morality, but that it is in itself a high and exquisite happiness to which order, property, and morality ought without one scruple to be sacrificed. Thelessons which may be learned from ancient history are indeed most usefuland important; but they were not likely to be learned by men who, in alltheir rhapsodies about the Athenian democracy, seemed utterly to forgetthat in that democracy there were ten slaves to one citizen; and whoconstantly decorated their invectives against the aristocrats withpanegyrics on Brutus and Cato, --two aristocrats, fiercer, prouder, andmore exclusive, than any that emigrated with the Count of Artois. 

We have never met with so vivid and interesting a picture of theNational Assembly as that which M. Dumont has set before us. HisMirabeau, in particular, is incomparable. All the former Mirabeauswere daubs in comparison. Some were merely painted from theimagination--others were gross caricatures: this is the very individual, neither god nor demon, but a man--a Frenchman--a Frenchman of theeighteenth century, with great talents, with strong passions, depravedby bad education, surrounded by temptations of every kind, --madedesperate at one time by disgrace, and then again intoxicated by fame. All his opposite and seemingly inconsistent qualities are in thisrepresentation so blended together as to make up a harmonious andnatural whole. Till now, Mirabeau was to us, and, we believe, to mostreaders of history, not a man, but a string of antitheses. Henceforth hewill be a real human being, a remarkable and eccentric being indeed, butperfectly conceivable. 

He was fond, M. Dumont tells us, of giving odd compound nicknames. Thus, M. De Lafayette was Grandison-Cromwell; the King of Prussia wasAlaric-Cottin; D'Espremenil was Crispin-Catiline. We think that Mirabeauhimself might be described, after his own fashion, as a Wilkes-Chatham. He had Wilkes's sensuality, Wilkes's levity, Wilkes's insensibility toshame. Like Wilkes, he had brought on himself the censure even of menof pleasure by the peculiar grossness of his immorality, and by theobscenity of his writings. Like Wilkes, he was heedless, not only ofthe laws of morality, but of the laws of honour. Yet he affected, likeWilkes, to unite the character of the demagogue to that of the finegentleman. Like Wilkes, he conciliated, by his good-humour and his highspirits, the regard of many who despised his character. Like Wilkes, he was hideously ugly; like Wilkes, he made a jest of his own ugliness;and, like Wilkes, he was, in spite of his ugliness, very attentive tohis dress, and very successful in affairs of gallantry. 

Resembling Wilkes in the lower and grosser parts of his character, hehad, in his higher qualities, some affinity to Chatham. His eloquence, as far as we can judge of it, bore no inconsiderable resemblance to thatof the great English minister. He was not eminently successful in longset speeches. He was not, on the other hand, a close and ready debater. Sudden bursts, which seemed to be the effect of inspiration--shortsentences which came like lightning, dazzling, burning, striking downeverything before them--sentences which, spoken at critical moments, decided the fate of great questions--sentences which at once becameproverbs--sentences which everybody still knows by heart--in thesechiefly lay the oratorical power both of Chatham and of Mirabeau. Therehave been far greater speakers, and far greater statesmen, than eitherof them; but we doubt whether any men have, in modern times, exercisedsuch vast personal influence over stormy and divided assemblies. Thepower of both was as much moral as intellectual. In true dignity ofcharacter, in private and public virtue, it may seem absurd to instituteany comparison between them; but they had the same haughtiness andvehemence of temper. In their language and manner there was a disdainfulself-confidence, an imperiousness, a fierceness of passion, before whichall common minds quailed. Even Murray and Charles Townshend, thoughintellectually not inferior to Chatham, were always cowed by him. Barnave, in the same manner, though the best debater in the NationalAssembly, flinched before the energy of Mirabeau. Men, except in badnovels, are not all good or all evil. It can scarcely be denied that thevirtue of Lord Chatham was a little theatrical. On the other hand therewas in Mirabeau, not indeed anything deserving the name of virtue, but that imperfect substitute for virtue which is found in almost allsuperior minds, --a sensibility to the beautiful and the good, whichsometimes amounted to sincere enthusiasm; and which, mingled withthe desire of admiration, sometimes gave to his character a lustreresembling the lustre of true goodness, --as the "faded splendour wan"which lingered round the fallen archangel resembled the exceedingbrightness of those spirits who had kept their first estate. 

There are several other admirable portraits of eminent men in theseMemoirs. That of Sieyes in particular, and that of Talleyrand, aremaster-pieces, full of life and expression. But nothing in the book hasinterested us more than the view which M. Dumont has presented to us, unostentatiously, and, we may say, unconsciously, of his own character. The sturdy rectitude, the large charity, the good-nature, the modesty, the independent spirit, the ardent philanthropy, the unaffectedindifference to money and to fame, make up a character which, while ithas nothing unnatural, seems to us to approach nearer to perfection thanany of the Grandisons and Allworthys of fiction. The work is not indeedprecisely such a work as we had anticipated--it is more lively, morepicturesque, more amusing than we had promised ourselves; and it is, onthe other hand, less profound and philosophic. But, if it is not, inall respects, such as might have been expected from the intellect of M. Dumont, it is assuredly such as might have been expected from his heart. 

*****

BARERE. (April 1844. )

 "Memoires de Bertrand Barere": publies par MM. Hippolyte Carnot, Membre de la Chambre des Deputes, et David d'Angers, Membre de l'Institut: precedes d'une Notice Historique par H. Carnot. 4 tomes. Paris: 1843. 

This book has more than one title to our serious attention. It is anappeal, solemnly made to posterity by a man who played a conspicuouspart in great events, and who represents himself as deeply aggrieved bythe rash and malevolent censure of his contemporaries. To such an appealwe shall always give ready audience. We can perform no duty more usefulto society, or more agreeable to our own feelings, than that of making, as far as our power extends, reparation to the slandered andpersecuted benefactors of mankind. We therefore promptly took into ourconsideration this copious apology for the life of Bertrand Barere. Wehave made up our minds; and we now purpose to do him, by the blessing ofGod, full and signal justice. It is to be observed that the appellant inthis case does not come into court alone. He is attended to the barof public opinion by two compurgators who occupy highly honourablestations. One of these is M. David of Angers, member of the institute, an eminent sculptor, and, if we have been rightly informed, a favouritepupil, though not a kinsman, of the painter who bore the same name. Theother, to whom we owe the biographical preface, is M. Hippolyte Carnot, member of the Chamber of Deputies, and son of the celebrated Director. In the judgment of M. David and of M. Hippolyte Carnot, Barere was adeserving and an ill-used man--a man who, though by no means faultless, must yet, when due allowance is made for the force of circumstances andthe infirmity of human nature, be considered as on the whole entitledto our esteem. It will be for the public to determine, after a fullhearing, whether the editors have, by thus connecting their names withthat of Barere, raised his character or lowered their own. 

We are not conscious that, when we opened this book, we were under theinfluence of any feeling likely to pervert our judgment. Undoubtedly wehad long entertained a most unfavourable opinion of Barere: but to thisopinion we were not tied by any passion or by any interest. Our dislikewas a reasonable dislike, and might have been removed by reason. Indeedour expectation was, that these Memoirs would in some measure clearBarere's fame. That he could vindicate himself from all the chargeswhich had been brought against him, we knew to be impossible; and hiseditors admit that he has not done so. But we thought it highly probablethat some grave accusations would be refuted, and that many offencesto which he would have been forced to plead guilty would be greatlyextenuated. We were not disposed to be severe. We were fully aware thattemptations such as those to which the members of the Convention andof the Committee of Public Safety were exposed must try severely thestrength of the firmest virtue. Indeed our inclination has always beento regard with an indulgence, which to some rigid moralists appearsexcessive, those faults into which gentle and noble spirits aresometimes hurried by the excitement of conflict, by the maddeninginfluence of sympathy, and by ill-regulated zeal for a public cause. 

With such feelings we read this book, and compared it with otheraccounts of the events in which Barere bore a part. It is now our dutyto express the opinion to which this investigation has led us. 

Our opinion then is this: that Barere approached nearer than any personmentioned in history or fiction, whether man or devil, to the idea ofconsummate and universal depravity. In him the qualities which are theproper objects of hatred, and the qualities which are the proper objectsof contempt, preserve an exquisite and absolute harmony. In almost everyparticular sort of wickedness he has had rivals. His sensuality wasimmoderate; but this was a failing common to him with many great andamiable men. There have been many men as cowardly as he, some as cruel, a few as mean, a few as impudent. There may also have been as greatliars, though we never met with them or read of them. But when we puteverything together, sensuality, poltroonery, baseness, effrontery, mendacity, barbarity, the result is something which in a novel we shouldcondemn as caricature, and to which, we venture to say, no parallel canbe found in history. 

It would be grossly unjust, we acknowledge, to try a man situated asBarere was by a severe standard. Nor have we done so. We have formedour opinion of him, by comparing him, not with politicians of stainlesscharacter, not with Chancellor D'Aguesseau, or General Washington, or MrWilberforce, or Earl Grey, but with his own colleagues of the Mountain. That party included a considerable number of the worst men that everlived; but we see in it nothing like Barere. Compared with him, Foucheseems honest; Billaud seems humane; Hebert seems to rise into dignity. Every other chief of a party, says M. Hippolyte Carnot, has foundapologists: one set of men exalts the Girondists; another set justifiesDanton; a third deifies Robespierre: but Barere has remained withouta defender. We venture to suggest a very simple solution of thisphenomenon. All the other chiefs of parties had some good qualities; andBarere had none. The genius, courage, patriotism, and humanity of theGirondist statesmen more than atoned for what was culpable in theirconduct, and should have protected them from the insult of beingcompared with such a thing as Barere. Danton and Robespierre were indeedbad men; but in both of them some important parts of the mind remainedsound. Danton was brave and resolute, fond of pleasure, of power, and ofdistinction, with vehement passions, with lax principles, but with somekind and manly feelings, capable of great crimes, but capable also offriendship and of compassion. He, therefore, naturally finds admirersamong persons of bold and sanguine dispositions. Robespierre was avain, envious, and suspicious man, with a hard heart, weak nerves, and agloomy temper. But we cannot with truth deny that he was, in the vulgarsense of the word, disinterested, that his private life was correct, orthat he was sincerely zealous for his own system of politics and morals. He, therefore, naturally finds admirers among honest but moody andbitter democrats. If no class has taken the reputation of Barere underits patronage, the reason is plain: Barere had not a single virtue, noreven the semblance of one. 

It is true that he was not, as far as we are able to judge, originallyof a savage disposition; but this circumstance seems to us only toaggravate his guilt. There are some unhappy men constitutionally proneto the darker passions, men all whose blood is gall, and to whom bitterwords and harsh actions are as natural as snarling and biting to aferocious dog. To come into the world with this wretched mental diseaseis a greater calamity than to be born blind or deaf. A man who, havingsuch a temper, keeps it in subjection, and constrains himself to behavehabitually with justice and humanity towards those who are in his power, seems to us worthy of the highest admiration. There have been instancesof this self-command; and they are among the most signal triumphs ofphilosophy and religion. On the other hand, a man who, having beenblessed by nature with a bland disposition, gradually brings himselfto inflict misery on his fellow-creatures with indifference, withsatisfaction, and at length with a hideous rapture, deserves to beregarded as a portent of wickedness; and such a man was Barere. Thehistory of his downward progress is full of instruction. Weakness, cowardice, and fickleness were born with him; the best quality which hereceived from nature was a good temper. These, it is true, are notvery promising materials; yet, out of materials as unpromising, highsentiments of piety and of honour have sometimes made martyrs andheroes. Rigid principles often do for feeble minds what stays do forfeeble bodies. But Barere had no principles at all. His character wasequally destitute of natural and of acquired strength. Neither in thecommerce of life, nor in books, did we ever become acquainted withany mind so unstable, so utterly destitute of tone, so incapable ofindependent thought and earnest preference, so ready to take impressionsand so ready to lose them. He resembled those creepers which must leanon something, and which, as soon as their prop is removed, fall down inutter helplessness. He could no more stand up, erect and self-supported, in any cause, than the ivy can rear itself like the oak, or the wildvine shoot to heaven like the cedar of Lebanon. It is barely possiblethat, under good guidance and in favourable circumstances, such a manmight have slipped through life without discredit. But the unseaworthycraft, which even in still water would have been in danger of going downfrom its own rottenness, was launched on a raging ocean, amidst a stormin which a whole armada of gallant ships was cast away. The weakest andmost servile of human beings found himself on a sudden an actor in aRevolution which convulsed the whole civilised world. At first he fellunder the influence of humane and moderate men, and talked the languageof humanity and moderation. But he soon found himself surrounded byfierce and resolute spirits, scared by no danger and restrained by noscruple. He had to choose whether he would be their victim or theiraccomplice. His choice was soon made. He tasted blood, and felt noloathing; he tasted it again, and liked it well. Cruelty became withhim, first a habit, then a passion, at last a madness. So complete andrapid was the degeneracy of his nature, that within a very few monthsafter the time when he had passed for a good-natured man, he had broughthimself to look on the despair and misery of his fellow-creatures witha glee resembling that of the fiends whom Dante saw watching the poolof seething pitch in Malebolge. He had many associates in guilt; but hedistinguished himself from them all by the Bacchanalian exaltation whichhe seemed to feel in the work of death. He was drunk with innocent andnoble blood, laughed and shouted as he butchered, and howled strangesongs and reeled in strange dances amidst the carnage. Then came asudden and violent turn of fortune. The miserable man was hurled downfrom the height of power to hopeless ruin and infamy. The shock soberedhim at once. The fumes of his horrible intoxication passed away. But hewas now so irrecoverably depraved that the discipline of adversity onlydrove him further into wickedness. Ferocious vices, of which he hadnever been suspected, had been developed in him by power. Another classof vices, less hateful perhaps, but more despicable, was now developedin him by poverty and disgrace. Having appalled the whole world by greatcrimes perpetrated under the pretence of zeal for liberty, he becamethe meanest of all the tools of despotism. It is not easy to settle theorder of precedence among his vices, but we are inclined to think thathis baseness was, on the whole, a rarer and more marvellous thing thanhis cruelty. 

This is the view which we have long taken of Barere's character; but, till we read these Memoirs, we held our opinion with the diffidencewhich becomes a judge who has only heard one side. The case seemedstrong, and in parts unanswerable; yet we did not know what the accusedparty might have to say for himself; and, not being much inclined totake our fellow-creatures either for angels of light or for angels ofdarkness, we could not but feel some suspicion that his offences hadbeen exaggerated. That suspicion is now at an end. The vindication isbefore us. It occupies four volumes. It was the work of forty years. Itwould be absurd to suppose that it does not refute every serious chargewhich admitted of refutation. How many serious charges, then, are hererefuted? Not a single one. Most of the imputations which have beenthrown on Barere he does not even notice. In such cases, of course, judgment must go against him by default. The fact is, that nothing canbe more meagre and uninteresting than his account of the great publictransactions in which he was engaged. He gives us hardly a word ofnew information respecting the proceedings of the Committee of PublicSafety; and, by way of compensation, tells us long stories about thingswhich happened before he emerged from obscurity, and after he had againsunk into it. Nor is this the worst. As soon as he ceases to writetrifles, he begins to write lies; and such lies! A man who has neverbeen within the tropics does not know what a thunderstorm means; a manwho has never looked on Niagara has but a faint idea of a cataract; andhe who has not read Barere's Memoirs may be said not to know what itis to lie. Among the numerous classes which make up the great genusMendacium, the Mendacium Vasconicum, or Gascon lie, has, during somecenturies, been highly esteemed as peculiarly circumstantial andpeculiarly impudent; and, among the Mendacia Vasconica, the MendaciumBarerianum is, without doubt, the finest species. It is indeed a superbvariety, and quite throws into the shade some Mendacia which we wereused to regard with admiration. The Mendacium Wraxallianum, for example, though by no means to be despised, will not sustain the comparison for amoment. Seriously, we think that M. Hippolyte Carnot is much to blame inthis matter. We can hardly suppose him to be worse read than ourselvesin the history of the Convention, a history which must interest himdeeply, not only as a Frenchman, but also as a son. He must, therefore, be perfectly aware that many of the most important statements whichthese volumes contain are falsehoods, such as Corneille's Dorante, orMoliere's Scapin, or Colin d'Harleville's Monsieur de Crac would havebeen ashamed to utter. We are far, indeed, from holding M. HippolyteCarnot answerable for Barere's want of veracity; but M. HippolyteCarnot has arranged these Memoirs, has introduced them to the world bya laudatory preface, has described them as documents of great historicalvalue, and has illustrated them by notes. We cannot but think that, byacting thus, he contracted some obligations of which he does not seemto have been at all aware; and that he ought not to have suffered anymonstrous fiction to go forth under the sanction of his name, withoutadding a line at the foot of the page for the purpose of cautioning thereader. 

We will content ourselves at present with pointing out two instancesof Barere's wilful and deliberate mendacity; namely, his account ofthe death of Marie Antoinette, and his account of the death ofthe Girondists. His account of the death of Marie Antoinette is asfollows:--"Robespierre in his turn proposed that the members of theCapet family should be banished, and that Marie Antoinette should bebrought to trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He would havebeen better employed in concerting military measures which might haverepaired our disasters in Belgium, and might have arrested the progressof the enemies of the Revolution in the west. "--(Volume ii. Page 312. )

Now, it is notorious that Marie Antoinette was sent before theRevolutionary Tribunal, not at Robespierre's instance, but in directopposition to Robespierre's wishes. We will cite a single authority, which is quite decisive. Bonaparte, who had no conceivable motive todisguise the truth, who had the best opportunities of knowing the truth, and who, after his marriage with the Archduchess, naturally felt aninterest in the fate of his wife's kinswomen, distinctly affirmed thatRobespierre opposed the trying of the Queen. (O'Meara's "Voice from StHelena", ii. 170. ) Who, then, was the person who really did propose thatthe Capet family should be banished, and that Marie Antoinette shouldbe tried? Full information will be found in the "Moniteur". ("Moniteur", 2d, 7th and 9th of August, 1793. ) From that valuable record it appearsthat, on the first of August 1793, an orator, deputed by the Committeeof Public Safety, addressed the Convention in a long and elaboratediscourse. He asked, in passionate language, how it happened that theenemies of the Republic still continued to hope for success. "Is it, "he cried, "because we have too long forgotten the crimes of the Austrianwoman? Is it because we have shown so strange an indulgence to the raceof our ancient tyrants? It is time that this unwise apathy should cease;it is time to extirpate from the soil of the Republic the last roots ofroyalty. As for the children of Louis the conspirator, they are hostagesfor the Republic. The charge of their maintenance shall be reduced towhat is necessary for the food and keep of two individuals. The publictreasure shall no longer be lavished on creatures who have too long beenconsidered as privileged. But behind them lurks a woman who has been thecause of all the disasters of France, and whose share in every projectadverse to the revolution has long been known. National justice claimsits rights over her. It is to the tribunal appointed for the trialof conspirators that she ought to be sent. It is only by strikingthe Austrian woman that you can make Francis and George, Charles andWilliam, sensible of the crimes which their ministers and their armieshave committed. " The speaker concluded by moving that Marie Antoinetteshould be brought to judgment, and should, for that end, be forthwithtransferred to the Conciergerie; and that all the members of the houseof Capet, with the exception of those who were under the sword of thelaw, and of the two children of Louis, should be banished from theFrench territory. The motion was carried without debate. 

Now, who was the person who made this speech and this motion? It wasBarere himself. It is clear, then, that Barere attributed his own meaninsolence and barbarity to one who, whatever his crimes may have been, was in this matter innocent. The only question remaining is, whetherBarere was misled by his memory, or wrote a deliberate falsehood. 

We are convinced that he wrote a deliberate falsehood. His memory isdescribed by his editors as remarkably good, and must have been badindeed if he could not remember such a fact as this. It is true that thenumber of murders in which he subsequently bore a part was so great thathe might well confound one with another, that he might well forget whatpart of the daily hecatomb was consigned to death by himself, and whatpart by his colleagues. But two circumstances make it quite incrediblethat the share which he took in the death of Marie Antoinette shouldhave escaped his recollection. She was one of his earliest victims. She was one of his most illustrious victims. The most hardened assassinremembers the first time that he shed blood; and the widow of Louiswas no ordinary sufferer. If the question had been about some milliner, butchered for hiding in her garret her brother who had let drop a wordagainst the Jacobin Club--if the question had been about some old nun, dragged to death for having mumbled what were called fanatical wordsover her beads--Barere's memory might well have deceived him. It wouldbe as unreasonable to expect him to remember all the wretches whomhe slew as all the pinches of snuff that he took. But, though Bareremurdered many hundreds of human beings, he murdered only one Queen. Thathe, a small country lawyer, who, a few years before, would have thoughthimself honoured by a glance or a word from the daughter of so manyCaesars, should call her the Austrian woman, should send her from jailto jail, should deliver her over to the executioner, was surely a greatevent in his life. Whether he had reason to be proud of it or ashamed ofit, is a question on which we may perhaps differ from his editors; butthey will admit, we think, that he could not have forgotten it. 

We, therefore, confidently charge Barere with having written adeliberate falsehood; and we have no hesitation in saying that we never, in the course of any historical researches that we have happened tomake, fell in with a falsehood so audacious, except only the falsehoodwhich we are about to expose. 

Of the proceeding against the Girondists, Barere speaks with justseverity. He calls it an atrocious injustice perpetrated against thelegislators of the republic. He complains that distinguished deputies, who ought to have been readmitted to their seats in the Convention, weresent to the scaffold as conspirators. The day, he exclaims, was a dayof mourning for France. It mutilated the national representation; itweakened the sacred principle, that the delegates of the people wereinviolable. He protests that he had no share in the guilt. "I have had, "he says, "the patience to go through the 'Moniteur', extracting all thecharges brought against deputies, and all the decrees for arresting andimpeaching deputies. Nowhere will you find my name. I never brought acharge against any of my colleagues, or made a report against any, ordrew up an impeachment against any. " (Volume ii. 407. )

Now, we affirm that this is a lie. We affirm that Barere himself tookthe lead in the proceedings of the Convention against the Girondists. Weaffirm that he, on the twenty-eighth of July 1793, proposed a decreefor bringing nine Girondist deputies to trial, and for putting to deathsixteen other Girondist deputies without any trial at all. We affirmthat, when the accused deputies had been brought to trial, and when someapprehension arose that their eloquence might produce an effect even onthe Revolutionary Tribunal, Barere did, on the 8th of Brumaire, seconda motion for a decree authorising the tribunal to decide without hearingout the defence; and, for the truth of every one of these things soaffirmed by us, we appeal to the very "Moniteur" to which Barere hasdared to appeal. ("Moniteur", 31st of July 1793, and Nonidi, firstDecade of Brumaire, in the year 2(?). )

What M. Hippolyte Carnot, knowing, as he must know, that this bookcontains such falsehoods as those which we have exposed, can have meant, when he described it as a valuable addition to our stock of historicalinformation, passes our comprehension. When a man is not ashamed to telllies about events which took place before hundreds of witnesses, andwhich are recorded in well-known and accessible books, what credit canwe give to his account of things done in corners? No historian who doesnot wish to be laughed at will ever cite the unsupported authority ofBarere as sufficient to prove any fact whatever. The only thing, as faras we can see, on which these volumes throw any light, is the exceedingbaseness of the author. 

So much for the veracity of the Memoirs. In a literary point of view, they are beneath criticism. They are as shallow, flippant, and affected, as Barere's oratory in the Convention. They are also, what his oratoryin the Convention was not, utterly insipid. In fact, they are the meredregs and rinsings of a bottle of which even the first froth was but ofvery questionable flavour. 

We will now try to present our readers with a sketch of this man's life. We shall, of course, make very sparing use indeed of his own Memoirs;and never without distrust, except where they are confirmed by otherevidence. 

Bertrand Barere was born in the year 1755, at Tarbes in Gascony. Hisfather was the proprietor of a small estate at Vieuzac, in the beautifulvale of Argeles. Bertrand always loved to be called Barere de Vieuzac, and flattered himself with the hope that, by the help of this feudaladdition to his name, he might pass for a gentleman. He was educated forthe bar at Toulouse, the seat of one of the most celebrated parliamentsof the kingdom, practised as an advocate with considerable success, and wrote some small pieces, which he sent to the principal literarysocieties in the south of France. Among provincial towns, Toulouse seemsto have been remarkably rich in indifferent versifiers and critics. Itgloried especially in one venerable institution, called the Academy ofthe Floral Games. This body held every year a grand meeting which was asubject of intense interest to the whole city, and at which flowersof gold and silver were given as prizes for odes, for idyls, and forsomething that was called eloquence. These bounties produced of coursethe ordinary effect of bounties, and turned people who might have beenthriving attorneys and useful apothecaries into small wits and badpoets. Barere does not appear to have been so lucky as to obtain any ofthese precious flowers; but one of his performances was mentioned withhonour. At Montauban he was more fortunate. The academy of that townbestowed on him several prizes, one for a panegyric on Louis theTwelfth, in which the blessings of monarchy and the loyalty of theFrench nation were set forth; and another for a panegyric on poor Francde Pompignan, in which, as may easily be supposed, the philosophy of theeighteenth century was sharply assailed. Then Barere found an old stoneinscribed with three Latin words, and wrote a dissertation upon it, which procured him a seat in a learned Assembly, called the ToulouseAcademy of Sciences, Inscriptions, and Polite Literature. At length thedoors of the Academy of the Floral Games were opened to so muchmerit. Barere, in his thirty-third year, took his seat as one of thatillustrious brotherhood, and made an inaugural oration which was greatlyadmired. He apologises for recounting these triumphs of his youthfulgenius. We own that we cannot blame him for dwelling long on the leastdisgraceful portion of his existence. To send in declamations for prizesoffered by provincial academies is indeed no very useful or dignifiedemployment for a bearded man; but it would have been well if Barere hadalways been so employed. 

In 1785 he married a young lady of considerable fortune. Whether she wasin other respects qualified to make a home happy, is a point respectingwhich we are imperfectly informed. In a little work, entitled"Melancholy Pages", which was written in 1797, Barere avers that hismarriage was one of mere convenience, that at the altar his heart washeavy with sorrowful forebodings, that he turned pale as he pronouncedthe solemn "Yes, " that unbidden tears rolled down his cheeks, that hismother shared his presentiment, and that the evil omen was accomplished. "My marriage, " he says, "was one of the most unhappy of marriages. " Soromantic a tale, told by so noted a liar, did not command our belief. Wewere, therefore, not much surprised to discover that, in his Memoirs, he calls his wife a most amiable woman, and declares that, after hehad been united to her six years, he found her as amiable as ever. Hecomplains, indeed, that she was too much attached to royalty and to theold superstition; but he assures us that his respect for her virtuesinduced him to tolerate her prejudices. Now Barere, at the time of hismarriage, was himself a Royalist and a Catholic. He had gained one prizeby flattering the Throne, and another by defending the Church. It ishardly possible, therefore, that disputes about politics or religionshould have embittered his domestic life till some time after he becamea husband. Our own guess is, that his wife was, as he says, a virtuousand amiable woman, and that she did her best to make him happy duringsome years. It seems clear that, when circumstances developed the latentatrocity of his character, she could no longer endure him, refused tosee him, and sent back his letters unopened. Then it was, we imagine, that he invented the fable about his distress on his wedding day. 

In 1788 Barere paid his first visit to Paris, attended reviews, heardLaharpe at the Lycaeum, and Condorcet at the Academy of Sciences, staredat the envoys of Tippoo Sahib, saw the Royal Family dine at Versailles, and kept a journal in which he noted down adventures and speculations. Some parts of this journal are printed in the first volume of the workbefore us, and are certainly most characteristic. The worst vices ofthe writer had not yet shown themselves; but the weakness which wasthe parent of those vices appears in every line. His levity, hisinconsistency, his servility, were already what they were to thelast. All his opinions, all his feelings, spin round and round like aweathercock in a whirlwind. Nay, the very impressions which he receivesthrough his senses are not the same two days together. He sees Louisthe Sixteenth, and is so much blinded by loyalty as to find his Majestyhandsome. "I fixed my eyes, " he says, "with a lively curiosity on hisfine countenance, which I thought open and noble. " The next time thatthe king appears all is altered. His Majesty's eyes are without thesmallest expression; he has a vulgar laugh which seems like idiocy, anignoble figure, an awkward gait, and the look of a big boy ill broughtup. It is the same with more important questions. Barere is for theparliaments on the Monday and against the parliaments on the Tuesday, for feudality in the morning and against feudality in the afternoon. Oneday he admires the English constitution; then he shudders to thinkthat, in the struggles by which that constitution had been obtained, thebarbarous islanders had murdered a king, and gives the preference tothe constitution of Bearn. Bearn, he says, has a sublime constitution, abeautiful constitution. There the nobility and clergy meet in one house, and the Commons in another. If the houses differ, the King hasthe casting vote. A few weeks later we find him raving against theprinciples of this sublime and beautiful constitution. To admit deputiesof the nobility and clergy into the legislature is, he says, neithermore nor less than to admit enemies of the nation into the legislature. 

In this state of mind, without one settled purpose or opinion, theslave of the last word, royalist, aristocrat, democrat, according to theprevailing sentiment of the coffee-house or drawing-room into which hehad just looked, did Barere enter into public life. The States-Generalhad been summoned. Barere went down to his own province, was thereelected one of the representatives of the Third Estate, and returned toParis in May 1789. 

A great crisis, often predicted, had at last arrived. In no country, we conceive, have intellectual freedom and political servitude existedtogether so long as in France, during the seventy or eighty years whichpreceded the last convocation of the Orders. Ancient abuses and newtheories flourished in equal vigour side by side. The people, having noconstitutional means of checking even the most flagitious misgovernment, were indemnified for oppression by being suffered to luxuriate inanarchical speculation, and to deny or ridicule every principle on whichthe institutions of the State reposed. Neither those who attribute thedownfall of the old French institutions to the public grievances, northose who attribute it to the doctrines of the philosophers, appearto us to have taken into their view more than one half of the subject. Grievances as heavy have often been endured without producing arevolution; doctrines as bold have often been propounded withoutproducing a revolution. The question, whether the French nation wasalienated from its old polity by the follies and vices of the Viziersand Sultanas who pillaged and disgraced it, or by the writings ofVoltaire and Rousseau, seems to us as idle as the question whether itwas fire or gunpowder that blew up the mills at Hounslow. Neithercause would have sufficed alone. Tyranny may last through ages wherediscussion is suppressed. Discussion may safely be left free by rulerswho act on popular principles. But combine a press like that of Londonwith a government like that of St Petersburg; and the inevitable effectwill be an explosion that will shake the world. So it was in France. Despotism and License, mingling in unblessed union, engendered thatmighty Revolution in which the lineaments of both parents were strangelyblended. The long gestation was accomplished; and Europe saw, with mixedhope and terror, that agonising travail and that portentous birth. 

Among the crowd of legislators which at this conjuncture poured from allthe provinces of France into Paris, Barere made no contemptible figure. The opinions which he for the moment professed were popular, yet notextreme. His character was fair; his personal advantages are said tohave been considerable; and, from the portrait which is prefixedto these Memoirs, and which represents him as he appeared in theConvention, we would judge that his features must have been strikinglyhandsome, though we think that we can read in them cowardice andmeanness very legibly written by the hand of God. His conversation waslively and easy; his manners remarkably good for a country lawyer. Womenof rank and wit said that he was the only man who, on his first arrivalfrom a remote province, had that indescribable air which it was supposedthat Paris alone could give. His eloquence, indeed, was by no means somuch admired in the capital as it had been by the ingenious academiciansof Montauban and Toulouse. His style was thought very bad; and very bad, if a foreigner may venture to judge, it continued to the last. It would, however, be unjust to deny that he had some talents for speaking andwriting. His rhetoric, though deformed by every imaginable fault oftaste, from bombast down to buffoonery, was not wholly without forceand vivacity. He had also one quality which, in active life, often givesfourth-rate men an advantage over first-rate men. Whatever he could do, he could do without effort, at any moment, in any abundance, and on anyside of any question. There was, indeed, a perfect harmony between hismoral character and his intellectual character. His temper was that ofa slave; his abilities were exactly those which qualified him to be auseful slave. Of thinking to purpose, he was utterly incapable; but hehad wonderful readiness in arranging and expressing thoughts furnishedby others. 

In the National Assembly he had no opportunity of displaying the fullextent either of his talents or of his vices. He was indeed eclipsedby much abler men. He went, as was his habit, with the stream, spokeoccasionally with some success, and edited a journal called the "Pointdu Jour", in which the debates of the Assembly were reported. 

He at first ranked by no means among the violent reformers. He was notfriendly to that new division of the French territory which was amongthe most important changes introduced by the Revolution, and wasespecially unwilling to see his native province dismembered. He wasentrusted with the task of framing Reports on the Woods and Forests. Louis was exceedingly anxious about this matter; for his majesty was akeen sportsman, and would much rather have gone without the Veto, orthe prerogative of making peace and war, than without his hunting andshooting. Gentlemen of the royal household were sent to Barere, inorder to intercede for the deer and pheasants. Nor was this intercessionunsuccessful. The reports were so drawn that Barere was afterwardsaccused of having dishonestly sacrificed the interests of the publicto the tastes of the court. To one of these reports he had theinconceivable folly and bad taste to prefix a punning motto from Virgil, fit only for such essays as he had been in the habit of composing forthe Floral Games--

"Si canimus sylvas, sylvae sint Consule dignae. "

This literary foppery was one of the few things in which he wasconsistent. Royalist or Girondist, Jacobin or Imperialist, he was alwaysa Trissotin. 

As the monarchical party became weaker and weaker, Barere graduallyestranged himself more and more from it, and drew closer and closer tothe republicans. It would seem that, during this transition, he was fora time closely connected with the family of Orleans. It is certainthat he was entrusted with the guardianship of the celebrated Pamela, afterwards Lady Edward Fitzgerald; and it was asserted that he receivedduring some years a pension of twelve thousand francs from the PalaisRoyal. 

At the end of September 1791, the labours of the National Assemblyterminated, and those of the first and last Legislative Assemblycommenced. 

It had been enacted that no member of the National Assembly should sitin the Legislative Assembly; a preposterous and mischievous regulation, to which the disasters which followed must in part be ascribed. InEngland, what would be thought of a Parliament which did not contain onesingle person who had ever sat in parliament before? Yet it may safelybe affirmed that the number of Englishmen who, never having takenany share in public affairs, are yet well qualified, by knowledge andobservation, to be members of the legislature is at least a hundredtimes as great as the number of Frenchmen who were so qualified in 1791. How, indeed, should it have been otherwise? In England, centuries ofrepresentative government have made all educated people in some measurestatesmen. In France the National Assembly had probably been composed ofas good materials as were then to be found. It had undoubtedly removed avast mass of abuses; some of its members had read and thought much abouttheories of government; and others had shown great oratorical talents. But that kind of skill which is required for the constructing, launching, and steering of a polity was lamentably wanting; for it is akind of skill to which practice contributes more than books. Books areindeed useful to the politician, as they are useful to the navigator andto the surgeon. But the real navigator is formed on the waves; the realsurgeon is formed at bedsides; and the conflicts of free states arethe real school of constitutional statesmen. The National Assembly had, however, now served an apprenticeship of two laborious and eventfulyears. It had, indeed, by no means finished its education; but it wasno longer, as on the day when it met, altogether rude to politicalfunctions. Its later proceedings contain abundant proof that the membershad profited by their experience. Beyond all doubt there was not inFrance any equal number of persons possessing in an equal degree thequalities necessary for the judicious direction of public affairs; and, just at this moment, these legislators, misled by a childish wish todisplay their own disinterestedness, deserted the duties which they hadhalf learned, and which nobody else had learned at all, and left theirhall to a second crowd of novices, who had still to master the firstrudiments of political business. When Barere wrote his Memoirs, theabsurdity of this self-denying ordinance had been proved by events, andwas, we believe, acknowledged by all parties. He accordingly, with hisusual mendacity, speaks of it in terms implying that he had opposed it. There was, he tells us, no good citizen who did not regret this fatalvote. Nay, all wise men, he says, wished the National Assembly tocontinue its sittings as the first Legislative Assembly. But noattention was paid to the wishes of the enlightened friends of liberty;and the generous but fatal suicide was perpetrated. Now the fact is, that Barere, far from opposing this ill-advised measure, was one ofthose who most eagerly supported it; that he described it from thetribune as wise and magnanimous; that he assigned, as his reasons fortaking this view, some of those phrases in which orators of his classdelight, and which, on all men who have the smallest insight intopolitics, produce an effect very similar to that of ipecacuanha. "Those, " he said, "who have framed a constitution for their country are, so to speak, out of the pale of that social state of which they are theauthors; for creative power is not in the same sphere with that which ithas created. "

M. Hippolyte Carnot has noticed this untruth, and attributes it tomere forgetfulness. We leave it to him to reconcile his very charitablesupposition with what he elsewhere says of the remarkable excellence ofBarere's memory. 

Many members of the National Assembly were indemnified for the sacrificeof legislative power by appointments in various departments of thepublic service. Of these fortunate persons Barere was one. A high Courtof Appeal had just been instituted. This court was to sit at Paris: butits jurisdiction was to extend over the whole realm; and the departmentswere to choose the judges. Barere was nominated by the department of theUpper Pyrenees, and took his seat in the Palace of Justice. He asserts, and our readers may, if they choose, believe, that it was about thistime in contemplation to make him Minister of the Interior, and that inorder to avoid so grave a responsibility, he obtained permission to paya visit to his native place. It is certain that he left Paris early inthe year 1792, and passed some months in the south of France. 

In the mean time, it became clear that the constitution of 1791 wouldnot work. It was, indeed, not to be expected that a constitution newboth in its principles and its details would at first work easily. Hadthe chief magistrate enjoyed the entire confidence of the people, had heperformed his part with the utmost zeal, fidelity, and ability--had therepresentative body included all the wisest statesmen of France, thedifficulties might still have been found insuperable. But, in fact, theexperiment was made under every disadvantage. The King, very naturally, hated the constitution. In the Legislative Assembly were men ofgenius and men of good intentions, but not a single man of experience. Nevertheless, if France had been suffered to settle her own affairswithout foreign interference, it is possible that the calamitieswhich followed might have been averted. The King, who, with many goodqualities, was sluggish and sensual, might have found compensation forhis lost prerogatives in his immense civil list, in his palaces andhunting grounds, in soups, Perigord pies, and champagne. The people, finding themselves secure in the enjoyment of the valuable reforms whichthe National Assembly had, in the midst of all its errors, effected, would not have been easily excited by demagogues to acts of atrocity;or, if acts of atrocity had been committed, those acts would probablyhave produced a speedy and violent reaction. Had tolerable quiet beenpreserved during a few years, the constitution of 1791 might perhapshave taken root, might have gradually acquired the strength whichtime alone can give, and might, with some modifications which wereundoubtedly needed, have lasted down to the present time. The Europeancoalition against the Revolution extinguished all hope of such a result. The deposition of Louis was, in our opinion, the necessary consequenceof that coalition. The question was now no longer, whether the Kingshould have an absolute Veto or a suspensive Veto, whether thereshould be one chamber or two chambers, whether the members of therepresentative body should be re-eligible or not; but whether Franceshould belong to the French. The independence of the nation, theintegrity of the territory, were at stake; and we must say plainly thatwe cordially approve of the conduct of those Frenchmen who, at thatconjuncture, resolved, like our own Blake, to play the men for theircountry, under whatever form of government their country might fall. 

It seems to us clear that the war with the Continental coalition was, onthe side of France, at first a defensive war, and therefore a just war. It was not a war for small objects, or against despicable enemies. Onthe event were staked all the dearest interests of the French people. Foremost among the threatening powers appeared two great and martialmonarchies, either of which, situated as France then was, might beregarded as a formidable assailant. It is evident that, under suchcircumstances, the French could not, without extreme imprudence, entrust the supreme administration of their affairs to any personwhose attachment to the national cause admitted of doubt. Now, it is noreproach to the memory of Louis to say that he was not attached to thenational cause. Had he been so, he would have been something more thanman. He had held absolute power, not by usurpation, but by the accidentof birth, and by the ancient polity of the kingdom. That power he had, on the whole, used with lenity. He had meant well by his people. He hadbeen willing to make to them, of his own mere motion, concessions suchas scarcely any other sovereign has ever made except under duress. He had paid the penalty of faults not his own, of the haughtiness andambition of some of his predecessors, of the dissoluteness and basenessof others. He had been vanquished, taken captive, led in triumph, put inward. He had escaped; he had been caught; he had been dragged back likea runaway galley-slave to the oar. He was still a state prisoner. Hisquiet was broken by daily affronts and lampoons. Accustomed from thecradle to be treated with profound reverence, he was now forced tocommand his feelings, while men who, a few months before, had beenhackney writers or country attorneys, sat in his presence with coveredheads, and addressed him in the easy tone of equality. Conscious offair intentions, sensible of hard usage, he doubtless detested theRevolution; and, while charged with the conduct of the war against theconfederates, pined in secret for the sight of the German eagles andthe sound of the German drums. We do not blame him for this. But canwe blame those who, being resolved to defend the work of the NationalAssembly against the interference of strangers, were not disposed tohave him at their head in the fearful struggle which was approaching?We have nothing to say in defence or extenuation of the insolence, injustice, and cruelty with which, after the victory of the republicans, he and his family were treated. But this we say, that the French hadonly one alternative, to deprive him of the powers of first magistrate, or to ground their arms and submit patiently to foreign dictation. The events of the tenth of August sprang inevitably from the league ofPilnitz. The King's palace was stormed; his guards were slaughtered. He was suspended from his regal functions; and the Legislative Assemblyinvited the nation to elect an extraordinary Convention, with the fullpowers which the conjuncture required. To this Convention the membersof the National Assembly were eligible; and Barere was chosen by his owndepartment. 

The Convention met on the 21st of September 1792. The first proceedingswere unanimous. Royalty was abolished by acclamation. No objectionswere made to this great change; and no reasons were assigned for it. Forcertainly we cannot honour with the name of reasons such apophthegms, as that kings are in the moral world what monsters are in the physicalworld; and that the history of kings is the martyrology of nations. But, though the discussion was worthy only of a debating club of schoolboys, the resolution to which the Convention came seems to have been thatwhich sound policy dictated. In saying this, we do not mean to expressan opinion that a republic is, either in the abstract the best form ofgovernment, or is, under ordinary circumstances, the form of governmentbest suited to the French people. Our own opinion is, that the bestgovernments which have ever existed in the world have been limitedmonarchies; and that France, in particular, has never enjoyed so muchprosperity and freedom as under a limited monarchy. Nevertheless, weapprove of the vote of the Convention which abolished kingly government. The interference of foreign powers had brought on a crisis which madeextraordinary measures necessary. Hereditary monarchy may be, and webelieve that it is, a very useful institution in a country like France. And masts are very useful parts of a ship. But, if the ship is on herbeam-ends, it may be necessary to cut the masts away. When once she hasrighted, she may come safe into port under jury rigging, and therebe completely repaired. But, in the meantime, she must be hacked withunsparing hand, lest that which, under ordinary circumstances, is anessential part of her fabric should, in her extreme distress, sink herto the bottom. Even so there are political emergencies in which it isnecessary that governments should be mutilated of their fair proportionsfor a time, lest they be cast away forever; and with such an emergencythe Convention had to deal. The first object of a good Frenchman shouldhave been to save France from the fate of Poland. The first requisite ofa government was entire devotion to the national cause. That requisitewas wanting in Louis; and such a want, at such a moment, could not besupplied by any public or private virtues. If the king were set aside, the abolition of kingship necessarily followed. In the state in whichthe public mind then was, it would have been idle to think of doing whatour ancestors did in 1688, and what the French Chamber of Deputies didin 1830. Such an attempt would have failed amidst universal derision andexecration. It would have disgusted all zealous men of all opinions; andthere were then few men who were not zealous. Parties fatigued by longconflict, and instructed by the severe discipline of that school inwhich alone mankind will learn, are disposed to listen to the voice ofa mediator. But when they are in their first heady youth, devoidof experience, fresh for exertion, flushed with hope, burning withanimosity, they agree only in spurning out of their way the daysman whostrives to take his stand between them and to lay his hand upon themboth. Such was in 1792 the state of France. On one side was the greatname of the heir of Hugh Capet, the thirty-third king of the thirdrace; on the other side was the great name of the republic. There wasno rallying point save these two. It was necessary to make a choice;and those, in our opinion, judged well who, waving for the moment allsubordinate questions, preferred independence to subjugation, and thenatal soil to the emigrant camp. 

As to the abolition of royalty, and as to the vigorous prosecution ofthe war, the whole Convention seemed to be united as one man. But a deepand broad gulf separated the representative body into two great parties. 

On one side were those statesmen who are called, from the name of thedepartment which some of them represented, the Girondists, and, fromthe name of one of their most conspicuous leaders, the Brissotines. In activity and practical ability, Brissot and Gensonne were the mostconspicuous among them. In parliamentary eloquence, no Frenchman of thattime can be considered as equal to Vergniaud. In a foreign country, andafter the lapse of half a century, some parts of his speeches are stillread with mournful admiration. No man, we are inclined to believe, everrose so rapidly to such a height of oratorical excellence. His wholepublic life lasted barely two years. This is a circumstance whichdistinguishes him from our own greatest speakers, Fox, Burke, Pitt, Sheridan, Windham, Canning. Which of these celebrated men would now beremembered as an orator, if he had died two years after he first tookhis seat in the House of Commons? Condorcet brought to the Girondistparty a different kind of strength. The public regarded him with justiceas an eminent mathematician, and, with less reason, as a great master ofethical and political science; the philosophers considered him as theirchief, as the rightful heir, by intellectual descent and by solemnadoption, of their deceased sovereign D'Alembert. In the same ranks werefound Guadet, Isnard, Barbaroux, Buzot, Louvet, too well known asthe author of a very ingenious and very licentious romance, and morehonourably distinguished by the generosity with which he pleaded for theunfortunate, and by the intrepidity with which he defied the wicked andpowerful. Two persons whose talents were not brilliant, but who enjoyeda high reputation for probity and public spirit, Petion and Roland, lentthe whole weight of their names to the Girondist connection. The wife ofRoland brought to the deliberations of her husband's friends masculinecourage and force of thought, tempered by womanly grace and vivacity. Nor was the splendour of a great military reputation wanting to thiscelebrated party. Dumourier, then victorious over the foreign invaders, and at the height of popular favour, must be reckoned among the alliesof the Gironde. 

The errors of the Brissotines were undoubtedly neither few nor small;but, when we fairly compare their conduct with the conduct of any otherparty which acted or suffered during the French Revolution, we areforced to admit their superiority in every quality except that singlequality which in such times prevails over every other, decision. Theywere zealous for the great social reform which had been effected by theNational Assembly; and they were right. For, though that reform was, insome respects, carried too far, it was a blessing well worth even thefearful price which has been paid for it. They were resolved to maintainthe independence of their country against foreign invaders; and theywere right. For the heaviest of all yokes is the yoke of the stranger. They thought that, if Louis remained at their head, they could notcarry on with the requisite energy the conflict against the Europeancoalition. They therefore concurred in establishing a republicangovernment; and here, again, they were right. For, in that struggle forlife and death, it would have been madness to trust a hostile or even ahalf hearted leader. 

Thus far they went along with the revolutionary movement. At this pointthey stopped; and, in our judgment, they were right in stopping, asthey had been right in moving. For great ends, and under extraordinarycircumstances, they had concurred in measures which, together with muchgood, had necessarily produced much evil; which had unsettled the publicmind; which had taken away from government the sanction of prescription;which had loosened the very foundations of property and law. Theythought that it was now their duty to prop what it had recently beentheir duty to batter. They loved liberty, but liberty associated withorder, with justice, with mercy, and with civilisation. They wererepublicans; but they were desirous to adorn their republic with allthat had given grace and dignity to the fallen monarchy. They hoped thatthe humanity, the courtesy, the taste, which had done much in old timesto mitigate the slavery of France, would now lend additional charms toher freedom. They saw with horror crimes exceeding in atrocity thosewhich had disgraced the infuriated religious factions of the sixteenthcentury, perpetrated in the name of reason and philanthropy. Theydemanded, with eloquent vehemence, that the authors of the lawlessmassacre, which, just before the meeting of the Convention, hadbeen committed in the prisons of Paris, should be brought to condignpunishment. They treated with just contempt the pleas which have beenset up for that great crime. They admitted that the public dangerwas pressing; but they denied that it justified a violation of thoseprinciples of morality on which all society rests. The independence andhonour of France were indeed to be vindicated, but to be vindicated bytriumphs and not by murders. 

Opposed to the Girondists was a party which, having been long execratedthroughout the civilised world, has of late--such is the ebb and flowof opinion--found not only apologists, but even eulogists. We are notdisposed to deny that some members of the Mountain were sincere andpublic spirited men. But even the best of them, Carnot, for example, andCambon, were far too unscrupulous as to the means which they employedfor the purpose of attaining great ends. In the train of theseenthusiasts followed a crowd, composed of all who, from sensual, sordid, or malignant motives, wished for a period of boundless license. 

When the Convention met, the majority were with the Girondists, andBarere was with the majority. On the King's trial, indeed, he quittedthe party with which he ordinarily acted, voted with the Mountain, andspoke against the prisoner with a violence such as few members even ofthe Mountain showed. 

The conduct of the leading Girondists on that occasion was littleto their honour. Of cruelty, indeed, we fully acquit them; but it isimpossible to acquit them of criminal irresolution and disingenuousness. They were far, indeed, from thirsting for the blood of Louis: on thecontrary, they were most desirous to protect him. But they were afraidthat, if they went straight forward to their object, the sincerity oftheir attachment to republican institutions would be suspected. Theywished to save the King's life, and yet to obtain all the credit ofhaving been regicides. Accordingly, they traced out for themselves acrooked course, by which they hoped to attain both their objects. Theyfirst voted the King guilty. They then voted for referring the questionrespecting his fate to the whole body of the people. Defeated in thisattempt to rescue him, they reluctantly, and with ill-suppressed shameand concern, voted for the capital sentence. Then they made a lastattempt in his favour, and voted for respiting the execution. Thesezigzag politics produced the effect which any man conversant with publicaffairs might have foreseen. The Girondists, instead of attaining boththeir ends, failed of both. The Mountain justly charged them with havingattempted to save the King by underhand means. Their own consciencestold them, with equal justice, that their hands had been dipped in theblood of the most inoffensive and most unfortunate of men. The directpath was here, as usual, the path not only of honour, but of safety. Theprinciple on which the Girondists stood as a party was, that the seasonfor revolutionary violence was over, and that the reign of law and orderought now to commence. But the proceeding against the King was clearlyrevolutionary in its nature. It was not in conformity with the laws. The only plea for it was, that all ordinary rules of jurisprudence andmorality were suspended by the extreme public danger. This was the veryplea which the Mountain urged in defence of the massacre of September, and to which, when so urged, the Girondists refused to listen. Theytherefore, by voting for the death of the King, conceded to the Mountainthe chief point at issue between the two parties. Had they given amanful vote against the capital sentence, the regicides would have beenin a minority. It is probable that there would have been an immediateappeal to force. The Girondists might have been victorious. In the worstevent, they would have fallen with unblemished honour. Thus muchis certain, that their boldness and honesty could not possibly haveproduced a worse effect than was actually produced by their timidity andtheir stratagems. 

Barere, as we have said, sided with the Mountain on this occasion. Hevoted against the appeal to the people and against the respite. Hisdemeanour and his language also were widely different from those of theGirondists. Their hearts were heavy, and their deportment was that ofmen oppressed by sorrow. It was Vergniaud's duty to proclaim the resultof the roll-call. His face was pale, and he trembled with emotion, as ina low and broken voice he announced that Louis was condemned to death. Barere had not, it is true, yet attained to full perfection in the artof mingling jests and conceits with words of death; but he already gavepromise of his future excellence in this high department of Jacobinoratory. He concluded his speech with a sentence worthy of his head andheart. "The tree of liberty, " he said, "as an ancient author remarks, flourishes when it is watered with the blood of all classes of tyrants. "M. Hippolyte Carnot has quoted this passage in order, as we suppose, todo honour to his hero. We wish that a note had been added to inform usfrom what ancient author Barere quoted. In the course of our own smallreading among the Greek and Latin writers, we have not happened to fallin with trees of liberty and watering-pots full of blood; nor can we, such is our ignorance of classical antiquity, even imagine an Attic orRoman orator employing imagery of that sort. In plain words, when Bareretalked about an ancient author, he was lying, as he generally was whenhe asserted any fact, great or small. Why he lied on this occasion wecannot guess, unless indeed it was to keep his hand in. 

It is not improbable that, but for the one circumstance, Barere would, like most of those with whom he ordinarily acted, have voted forthe appeal to the people and for the respite. But, just before thecommencement of the trial, papers had been discovered which proved that, while a member of the National Assembly, he had been in communicationwith the Court respecting his Reports on the Woods and Forests. Hewas acquitted of all criminality by the Convention; but the fiercerRepublicans considered him as a tool of the fallen monarch; and thisreproach was long repeated in the journal of Marat, and in the speechesat the Jacobin club. It was natural that a man like Barere should, under such circumstances, try to distinguish himself among the crowd ofregicides by peculiar ferocity. It was because he had been a royalistthat he was one of the foremost in shedding blood. 

The King was no more. The leading Girondists had, by their conducttowards him, lowered their character in the eyes both of friends andfoes. They still, however, maintained the contest against the Mountain, called for vengeance on the assassins of September, and protestedagainst the anarchical and sanguinary doctrines of Marat. For a timethey seemed likely to prevail. As publicists and orators, they had norivals in the Convention. They had with them, beyond all doubt, thegreat majority both of the deputies and of the French nation. Theseadvantages, it should seem, ought to have decided the event of thestruggle. But the opposite party had compensating advantages of adifferent kind. The chiefs of the Mountain, though not eminentlydistinguished by eloquence or knowledge, had great audacity, activity, and determination. The Convention and France were against them; but themob of Paris, the clubs of Paris, and the municipal government of Paris, were on their side. 

The policy of the Jacobins, in this situation, was to subject Franceto an aristocracy infinitely worse than that aristocracy which hademigrated with the count of Artois--to an aristocracy not of birth, notof wealth, not of education, but of mere locality. They would not hearof privileged orders; but they wished to have a privileged city. Thattwenty-five millions of Frenchmen should be ruled by a hundred thousandgentlemen and clergymen was insufferable; but that twenty-five millionsof Frenchmen should be ruled by a hundred thousand Parisians was as itshould be. The qualification of a member of the new oligarchy was simplythat he should live near the hall where the Convention met, and shouldbe able to squeeze himself daily into the gallery during a debate, andnow and then to attend with a pike for the purpose of blockading thedoors. It was quite agreeable to the maxims of the Mountain that ascore of draymen from Santerre's brewery, or of devils from Hebert'sprinting-house, should be permitted to drown the voices of mencommissioned to speak the sense of such cities as Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Lyons; and that a rabble of half-naked porters from the Faubourg StAntoine should have power to annul decrees for which the representativesof fifty or sixty departments had voted. It was necessary to find somepretext for so odious and absurd a tyranny. Such a pretext was found. To the old phrases of liberty and equality were added the sonorouswatchwords, unity and indivisability. A new crime was invented, andcalled by the name of federalism. The object of the Girondists, itwas asserted, was to break up the great nation into little independentcommonwealths, bound together only by a league like that which connectsthe Swiss Cantons or the United States of America. The great obstaclein the way of this pernicious design was the influence of Paris. Tostrengthen the influence of Paris ought therefore to be the chief objectof every patriot. 

The accusation brought against the leaders of the Girondist party was amere calumny. They were undoubtedly desirous to prevent the capital fromdomineering over the republic, and would gladly have seen the Conventionremoved for a time to some provincial town, or placed under theprotection of a trusty guard, which might have overawed the Parisianmob; but there is not the slightest reason to suspect them of anydesign against the unity of the state. Barere, however, really was afederalist, and, we are inclined to believe, the only federalist in theConvention. As far as a man so unstable and servile can be said to havefelt any preference for any form of government, he felt a preference forfederal government. He was born under the Pyrenees; he was a Gascon ofthe Gascons, one of a people strongly distinguished by intellectualand moral character, by manners, by modes of speech, by accent, and byphysiognomy, from the French of the Seine and of the Loire; and he hadmany of the peculiarities of the race to which he belonged. When hefirst left his own province he had attained his thirty-fourth year, andhad acquired a high local reputation for eloquence and literature. Hehad then visited Paris for the first time. He had found himself in a newworld. His feelings were those of a banished man. It is clear also thathe had been by no means without his share of the small disappointmentsand humiliations so often experienced by men of letters who, elatedby provincial applause, venture to display their powers before thefastidious critics of a capital. On the other hand, whenever herevisited the mountains among which he had been born, he foundhimself an object of general admiration. His dislike of Paris, and hispartiality to his native district, were therefore as strong and durableas any sentiments of a mind like his could be. He long continued tomaintain that the ascendency of one great city was the bane of France;that the superiority of taste and intelligence which it was the fashionto ascribe to the inhabitants of that city were wholly imaginary; andthat the nation would never enjoy a really good government till theAlsatian people, the Breton people, the people of Bearn, the people ofProvence, should have each an independent existence, and laws suited toits own tastes and habits. These communities he proposed to unite bya tie similar to that which binds together the grave Puritans ofConnecticut and the dissolute slave-drivers of New Orleans. To Parishe was unwilling to grant even the rank which Washington holds in theUnited States. He thought it desirable that the congress of the Frenchfederation should have no fixed place of meeting, but should sitsometimes at Rouen, sometimes at Bordeaux, sometimes at his ownToulouse. 

Animated by such feelings, he was, till the close of May 1793, aGirondist, if not an ultra-Girondist. He exclaimed against those impureand bloodthirsty men who wished to make the public danger a pretext forcruelty and rapine. "Peril, " he said, "could be no excuse for crime. Itis when the wind blows hard, and the waves run high, that the anchor ismost needed; it is when a revolution is raging, that the great laws ofmorality are most necessary to the safety of a state. " Of Marat he spokewith abhorrence and contempt; of the municipal authorities of Paris withjust severity. He loudly complained that there were Frenchmen who paidto the Mountain that homage which was due to the Convention alone. Whenthe establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal was first proposed, hejoined himself to Vergniaud and Buzot, who strongly objected to thatodious measure. "It cannot be, " exclaimed Barere, "that men reallyattached to liberty will imitate the most frightful excesses ofdespotism!" He proved to the Convention, after his fashion, out ofSallust, that such arbitrary courts may indeed, for a time, be severeonly on real criminals, but must inevitably degenerate into instrumentsof private cupidity and revenge. When, on the tenth of March, the worstpart of the population of Paris made the first unsuccessful attempt todestroy the Girondists, Barere eagerly called for vigorous measures ofrepression and punishment. On the second of April, another attempt ofthe Jacobins of Paris to usurp supreme dominion over the republic wasbrought to the knowledge of the Convention; and again Barere spoke withwarmth against the new tyranny which afflicted France, and declared thatthe people of the departments would never crouch beneath the tyranny ofone ambitious city. He even proposed a resolution to the effect that theConvention would exert against the demagogues of the capital the sameenergy which had been exerted against the tyrant Louis. We are assuredthat, in private as in public, he at this time uniformly spoke withstrong aversion of the Mountain. 

His apparent zeal for the cause of humanity and order had its reward. Early in April came the tidings of Dumourier's defection. This was aheavy blow to the Girondists. Dumourier was their general. His victorieshad thrown a lustre on the whole party; his army, it had been hoped, would, in the worst event, protect the deputies of the nation againstthe ragged pikemen of the garrets of Paris. He was now a deserter andan exile; and those who had lately placed their chief reliance onhis support were compelled to join with their deadliest enemies inexecrating his treason. At this perilous conjuncture, it was resolvedto appoint a Committee of Public Safety, and to arm that committee withpowers, small indeed when compared with those which it afterwards drewto itself, but still great and formidable. The moderate party, regardingBarere as a representative of their feelings and opinions, elected hima member. In his new situation he soon began to make himself useful. Hebrought to the deliberations of the Committee, not indeed the knowledgeor the ability of a great statesman, but a tongue and a pen which, ifothers would only supply ideas, never paused for want of words. His mindwas a mere organ of communication between other minds. It originatednothing; it retained nothing; but it transmitted everything. Thepost assigned to him by his colleagues was not really of the highestimportance; but it was prominent, and drew the attention of all Europe. When a great measure was to be brought forward, when an account was tobe rendered of an important event, he was generally the mouthpiece ofthe administration. He was therefore not unnaturally considered, bypersons who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and aboveall by foreigners, who, while the war raged, knew France only fromjournals, as the head of that administration of which, in truth, hewas only the secretary and the spokesman. The author of the History ofEurope, in our own Annual Registers, appears to have been completelyunder this delusion. 

The conflict between the hostile parties was meanwhile fast approachingto a crisis. The temper of Paris grew daily fiercer and fiercer. Delegates appointed by thirty-five of the forty-eight wards of the cityappeared at the bar of the Convention, and demanded that Vergniaud, Brissot, Guadet, Gensonne, Barbaroux, Buzot, Petion, Louvet, and manyother deputies, should be expelled. This demand was disapproved by atleast three-fourths of the Assembly, and, when known in the departments, called forth a general cry of indignation. Bordeaux declared that itwould stand by its representatives, and would, if necessary, defend themby the sword against the tyranny of Paris. Lyons and Marseilles wereanimated by a similar spirit. These manifestations of public opiniongave courage to the majority of the Convention. Thanks were voted tothe people of Bordeaux for their patriotic declaration; and acommission consisting of twelve members was appointed for the purpose ofinvestigating the conduct of the municipal authorities of Paris, and wasempowered to place under arrest such persons as should appear to havebeen concerned in any plot against the authority of the Convention. Thismeasure was adopted on the motion of Barere. 

A few days of stormy excitement and profound anxiety followed; and thencame the crash. On the thirty-first of May the mob of Paris rose; thepalace of the Tuileries was besieged by a vast array of pikes; themajority of the deputies, after vain struggles and remonstrances, yielded to violence, and suffered the Mountain to carry a decree for thesuspension and arrest of the deputies whom the wards of the capital hadaccused. 

During this contest, Barere had been tossed backwards and forwardsbetween the two raging factions. His feelings, languid and unsteady asthey always were, drew him to the Girondists; but he was awed by thevigour and determination of the Mountain. At one moment he held highand firm language, complained that the Convention was not free, andprotested against the validity of any vote passed under coercion. Atanother moment he proposed to conciliate the Parisians by abolishingthat commission of twelve which he had himself proposed only a few daysbefore; and himself drew up a paper condemning the very measures whichhad been adopted at his own instance, and eulogising the public spiritof the insurgents. To do him justice, it was not without some symptomsof shame that he read his document from the tribune, where he had sooften expressed very different sentiments. It is said that, at somepassages, he was even seen to blush. It may have been so; he was stillin his novitiate of infamy. 

Some days later he proposed that hostages for the personal safety of theaccused deputies should be sent to the departments, and offered to behimself one of those hostages. Nor do we in the least doubt that theoffer was sincere. He would, we firmly believe, have thought himself farsafer at Bordeaux or Marseilles than at Paris. His proposition, however, was not carried into effect; and he remained in the power of thevictorious Mountain. 

This was the great crisis of his life. Hitherto he had done nothinginexpiable, nothing which marked him out as a much worse man than mostof his colleagues in the Convention. His voice had generally been onthe side of moderate measures. Had he bravely cast in his lot with theGirondists, and suffered with them, he would, like them, have had a notdishonourable place in history. Had he, like the great body of deputieswho meant well, but who had not the courage to expose themselvesto martyrdom, crouched quietly under the dominion of the triumphantminority, and suffered every motion of Robespierre and Billaud topass unopposed, he would have incurred no peculiar ignominy. But it isprobable that this course was not open to him. He had been too prominentamong the adversaries of the Mountain to be admitted to quarter withoutmaking some atonement. It was necessary that, if he hoped to find pardonfrom his new lords, he should not be merely a silent and passiveslave. What passed in private between him and them cannot be accuratelyrelated; but the result was soon apparent. The Committee of PublicSafety was renewed. Several of the fiercest of the dominant faction, Couthon for example, and Saint Just, were substituted for more moderatepoliticians; but Barere was suffered to retain his seat at the Board. 

The indulgence with which he was treated excited the murmurs of somestern and ardent zealots. Marat, in the very last words that he wrote, words not published till the dagger of Charlotte Corday had avengedFrance and mankind, complained that a man who had no principles, who wasalways on the side of the strongest, who had been a royalist, and whowas ready, in case of a turn of fortune, to be a royalist again, shouldbe entrusted with an important share in the administration. (See the"Publiciste" of the 14th July, 1793. Marat was stabbed on the eveningof the 13th. ) But the chiefs of the Mountain judged more correctly. Theyknew, indeed, as well as Marat, that Barere was a man utterly withoutfaith or steadiness; that, if he could be said to have any politicalleaning, his leaning was not towards them; that he felt for theGirondist party that faint and wavering sort of preference of whichalone his nature was susceptible; and that, if he had been at libertyto make his choice, he would rather have murdered Robespierre and Dantonthan Vergniaud and Gensonne. But they justly appreciated that levitywhich made him incapable alike of earnest love and of earnest hatred, and that meanness which made it necessary to him to have a master. Intruth, what the planters of Carolina and Louisiana say of black men withflat noses and woolly hair was strictly true of Barere. The curse ofCanaan was upon him. He was born a slave. Baseness was an instinct inhim. The impulse which drove him from a party in adversity to a party inprosperity was as irresistible as that which drives the cuckoo and theswallow towards the sun when the dark and cold months are approaching. The law which doomed him to be the humble attendant of stronger spiritsresembled the law which binds the pilot fish to the shark. "Ken ye, "said a shrewd Scotch lord, who was asked his opinion of James theFirst--"Ken ye a John Ape? If I have Jacko by the collar, I can make himbite you; but, if you have Jacko, you can make him bite me. " Just sucha creature was Barere. In the hands of the Girondists he would have beeneager to proscribe the Jacobins; he was just as ready, in the gripe ofthe Jacobins, to proscribe the Girondists. On the fidelity of such a manthe heads of the Mountain could not, of course, reckon; but theyvalued their conquest as the very easy and not very delicate loverin Congreve's lively song valued the conquest of a prostitute of adifferent kind. Barere was, like Chloe, false and common; but he was, like Chloe, constant while possessed; and they asked no more. Theyneeded a service which he was perfectly competent to perform. Destituteas he was of all the talents both of an active and of a speculativestatesman, he could with great facility draw up a report, or make aspeech on any subject and on any side. If other people would furnishfacts and thoughts, he could always furnish phrases; and this talent wasabsolutely at the command of his owners for the time being. Nor hadhe excited any angry passion among those to whom he had hitherto beenopposed. They felt no more hatred to him than they felt to the horseswhich dragged the cannon of the Duke of Brunswick and of the Princeof Saxe-Coburg. The horses had only done according to their kind, andwould, if they fell into the hands of the French, drag with equal vigourand equal docility the guns of the republic, and therefore ought notmerely to be spared, but to be well fed and curried. So was it withBarere. He was of a nature so low, that it might be doubted whether hecould properly be an object of the hostility of reasonable beings. He had not been an enemy; he was not now a friend. But he had been anannoyance; and he would now be a help. 

But, though the heads of the Mountain pardoned this man, and admittedhim into partnership with themselves, it was not without exactingpledges such as made it impossible for him, false and fickle as he was, ever again to find admission into the ranks which he had deserted. Thatwas truly a terrible sacrament by which they admitted the apostate intotheir communion. They demanded of him that he should himself take themost prominent part in murdering his old friends. To refuse was as muchas his life was worth. But what is life worth when it is only one longagony of remorse and shame? These, however, are feelings of which itis idle to talk, when we are considering the conduct of such a manas Barere. He undertook the task, mounted the tribune, and told theConvention that the time was come for taking the stern attitude ofjustice, and for striking at all conspirators without distinction. Hethen moved that Buzot, Barbaroux, Petion, and thirteen other deputies, should be placed out of the pale of the law, or, in other words, beheaded without a trial; and that Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, and sixothers, should be impeached. The motion was carried without debate. 

We have already seen with what effrontery Barere has denied, in theseMemoirs, that he took any part against the Girondists. This denial, wethink, was the only thing wanting to make his infamy complete. The mostimpudent of all lies was a fit companion for the foulest of all murders. 

Barere, however, had not yet earned his pardon. The Jacobin partycontained one gang which, even in that party, was pre-eminent in everymean and every savage vice; a gang so low-minded and so inhumanthat, compared with them, Robespierre might be called magnanimous andmerciful. Of these wretches Hebert was perhaps the best representative. His favourite amusement was to torment and insult the miserable remainsof that great family which, having ruled France during eight hundredyears, had now become an object of pity to the humblest artisan orpeasant. The influence of this man, and of men like him, induced theCommittee of Public Safety to determine that Marie Antoinette should besent to the scaffold. Barere was again summoned to his duty. Only fourdays after he had proposed the decrees against the Girondist deputieshe again mounted the tribune, in order to move that the Queen should bebrought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He was improving fast in thesociety of his new allies. When he asked for the heads of Vergniaud andPetion he had spoken like a man who had some slight sense of his ownguilt and degradation: he had said little; and that little had not beenviolent. The office of expatiating on the guilt of his old friends hehad left to Saint Just. Very different was Barere's second appearancein the character of an accuser. He now cried out for blood in the eagertones of the true and burning thirst, and raved against the Austrianwoman with the virulence natural to a coward who finds himself atliberty to outrage that which he has feared and envied. We have alreadyexposed the shameless mendacity with which, in these Memoirs, heattempts to throw the blame of his own guilt on the guiltless. 

On the day on which the fallen Queen was dragged, already more than halfdead, to her doom, Barere regaled Robespierre and some other Jacobinsat a tavern. Robespierre's acceptance of the invitation caused somesurprise to those who knew how long and how bitterly it was his natureto hate. "Robespierre of the party!" muttered Saint Just. "Barere isthe only man whom Robespierre has forgiven. " We have an account ofthis singular repast from one of the guests. Robespierre condemned thesenseless brutality with which Hebert had conducted the proceedingsagainst the Austrian woman, and, in talking on that subject, becameso much excited that he broke his plate in the violence of hisgesticulation. Barere exclaimed that the guillotine had cut a diplomaticknot which it might have been difficult to untie. In the intervalsbetween the Beaune and the Champagne, between the ragout of thrushesand the partridge with truffles, he fervently preached his new politicalcreed. "The vessel of the revolution, " he said, "can float into portonly on waves of blood. We must begin with the members of the NationalAssembly and of the Legislative Assembly. That rubbish must be sweptaway. "

As he talked at table he talked in the Convention. His peculiar styleof oratory was now formed. It was not altogether without ingenuity andliveliness. But in any other age or country it would have been thoughtunfit for the deliberations of a grave assembly, and still moreunfit for state papers. It might, perhaps, succeed at a meeting of aProtestant Association in Exeter Hall, at a Repeal dinner in Ireland, after men had well drunk, or in an American oration on the fourth ofJuly. No legislative body would now endure it. But in France, duringthe reign of the Convention, the old laws of composition were held in asmuch contempt as the old government or the old creed. Correct and noblediction belonged, like the etiquette of Versailles and the solemnitiesof Notre Dame, to an age which had passed away. Just as a swarm ofephemeral constitutions, democratic, directorial, and consular, sprang from the decay of the ancient monarchy; just as a swarm of newsuperstitions, the worship of the Goddess of Reason, and the fooleriesof the Theo-philanthropists, sprang from the decay of the ancientChurch; even so, out of the decay of the ancient French eloquence sprangnew fashions of eloquence, for the understanding of which new grammarsand dictionaries were necessary. The same innovating spirit whichaltered the common phrases of salutation, which turned hundreds of Johnsand Peters into Scaevolas and Aristogitons, and which expelled Sundayand Monday, January and February, Lady-day and Christmas, from thecalendar, in order to substitute Decadi and Primidi, Nivose andPluviose, Feasts of Opinion and Feasts of the Supreme Being, changed allthe forms of official correspondence. For the calm, guarded, and sternlycourteous language which governments had long been accustomed to employ, were substituted puns, interjections, Ossianic rants, rhetoric worthyonly of a schoolboy, scurrility worthy only of a fishwife. Of thephraseology which was now thought to be peculiarly well suited to areport or a manifesto Barere had a greater command than any man of histime, and, during the short and sharp paroxysm of the revolutionarydelirium, passed for a great orator. When the fit was over, he wasconsidered as what he really was, a man of quick apprehension and fluentelocution, with no originality, with little information, and witha taste as bad as his heart. His Reports were popularly calledCarmagnoles. A few months ago we should have had some difficulty inconveying to an English reader an exact notion of the state papers towhich this appellation was given. Fortunately a noble and distinguishedperson, whom her Majesty's Ministers have thought qualified to fill themost important post in the empire, has made our task easy. Whoever hasread Lord Ellenborough's proclamations is able to form a complete ideaof a Carmagnole. 

The effect which Barere's discourses at one time produced is not to bewholly attributed to the perversion of the national taste. The occasionson which he rose were frequently such as would have secured to theworst speaker a favourable hearing. When any military advantage had beengained, he was generally deputed by the Committee of Public Safety toannounce the good news. The hall resounded with applause as he mountedthe tribune, holding the despatches in his hand. Deputies and strangerslistened with delight while he told them that victory was the orderof the day; that the guineas of Pitt had been vainly lavished to hiremachines six feet high, carrying guns; that the flight of the Englishleopard deserved to be celebrated by Tyrtaeus; and that the saltpetredug out of the cellars of Paris had been turned into thunder, whichwould crush the Titan brethren, George and Francis. 

Meanwhile the trial of the accused Girondists, who were under arrest inParis, came on. They flattered themselves with a vain hope of escape. They placed some reliance on their innocence, and some reliance on theireloquence. They thought that shame would suffice to restrain anyman, however violent and cruel, from publicly committing the flagrantiniquity of condemning them to death. The Revolutionary Tribunal was newto its functions. No member of the Convention had yet been executed;and it was probable that the boldest Jacobin would shrink from beingthe first to violate the sanctity which was supposed to belong to therepresentatives of the people. 

The proceedings lasted some days. Gensonne and Brissot defendedthemselves with great ability and presence of mind against the vileHebert and Chaumette, who appeared as accusers. The eloquent voice ofVergniaud was heard for the last time. He pleaded his own cause and thatof his friends, with such force of reason and elevation of sentimentthat a murmur of pity and admiration rose from the audience. Nay, thecourt itself, not yet accustomed to riot in daily carnage, showed signsof emotion. The sitting was adjourned; and a rumour went forth thatthere would be an acquittal. The Jacobins met, breathing vengeance. Robespierre undertook to be their organ. He rose on the following day inthe Convention, and proposed a decree of such atrocity that even amongthe acts of that year it can hardly be paralleled. By this decree thetribunal was empowered to cut short the defence of the prisoners, topronounce the case clear, and to pass immediate judgment. One deputymade a faint opposition. Barere instantly sprang up to supportRobespierre--Barere, the federalist; Barere, the author of thatCommission of Twelve which was among the chief causes of the hatredborne by Paris to the Girondists; Barere, who in these Memoirs deniesthat he ever took any part against the Girondists; Barere, who has theeffrontery to declare that he greatly loved and esteemed Vergniaud. Thedecree was passed; and the tribunal, without suffering the prisoners toconclude what they had to say, pronounced them guilty. 

The following day was the saddest in the sad history of the Revolution. The sufferers were so innocent, so brave, so eloquent, so accomplished, so young. Some of them were graceful and handsome youths of six or sevenand twenty. Vergniaud and Gensonne were little more than thirty. Theyhad been only a few months engaged in public affairs. In a few monthsthe fame of their genius had filled Europe; and they were to die forno crime but this, that they had wished to combine order, justice, andmercy with freedom. Their great fault was want of courage. We mean wantof political courage--of that courage which is proof to clamour andobloquy, and which meets great emergencies by daring and decisivemeasures. Alas! they had but too good an opportunity of proving thatthey did not want courage to endure with manly cheerfulness the worstthat could be inflicted by such tyrants as Saint Just, and such slavesas Barere. 

They were not the only victims of the noble cause. Madame Rolandfollowed them to the scaffold with a spirit as heroic as their own. Herhusband was in a safe hiding-place, but could not bear to survive her. His body was found on the high road near Rouen. He had fallen on hissword. Condorcet swallowed opium. At Bordeaux the steel fell on thenecks of the bold and quick-witted Guadet and of Barbaroux, the chiefof those enthusiasts from the Rhone whose valour, in the great crisis ofthe tenth of August, had turned back the tide of battle from the Louvreto the Tuileries. In a field near the Garonne was found all that thewolves had left of Petion, once honoured, greatly indeed beyond hisdeserts, as the model of republican virtue. We are far from regardingeven the best of the Girondists with unmixed admiration; but historyowes to them this honourable testimony, that, being free to choosewhether they would be oppressors or victims, they deliberately andfirmly resolved rather to suffer injustice than to inflict it. 

And now began that strange period known by the name of the Reign ofTerror. The Jacobins had prevailed. This was their hour, and the powerof darkness. The Convention was subjugated and reduced to profoundsilence on the highest questions of state. The sovereignty passed to theCommittee of Public Safety. To the edicts framed by that Committee therepresentative assembly did not venture to offer even the species ofopposition which the ancient parliament had frequently offered to themandates of the ancient kings. Six persons held the chief power in thesmall cabinet which now domineered over France--Robespierre, Saint Just, Couthon, Collot, Billaud, and Barere. 

To some of these men, and of those who adhered to them, it is due to saythat the fanaticism which had emancipated them from the restraints ofjustice and compassion had emancipated them also from the dominion ofvulgar cupidity and of vulgar fear; that, while hardly knowing where tofind an assignat of a few francs to pay for a dinner, they expended withstrict integrity the immense revenue which they collected by every artof rapine; and that they were ready, in support of their cause, to mountthe scaffold with as much indifference as they showed when they signedthe death-warrants of aristocrats and priests. But no great party can becomposed of such materials as these. It is the inevitable law that suchzealots as we have described shall collect around them a multitudeof slaves, of cowards, and of libertines, whose savage tempers andlicentious appetites, withheld only by the dread of law and magistracyfrom the worst excesses, are called into full activity by the hope ofimmunity. A faction which, from whatever motive, relaxes the great lawsof morality is certain to be joined by the most immoral part of thecommunity. This has been repeatedly proved in religious wars. The warof the Holy Sepulchre, the Albigensian war, the Huguenot war, theThirty Years' war, all originated in pious zeal. That zeal inflamedthe champions of the Church to such a point that they regarded allgenerosity to the vanquished as a sinful weakness. The infidel, theheretic, was to be run down like a mad dog. No outrage committed by theCatholic warrior on the miscreant enemy could deserve punishment. Assoon as it was known that boundless license was thus given to barbarityand dissoluteness, thousands of wretches who cared nothing for thesacred cause, but who were eager to be exempted from the police ofpeaceful cities, and the discipline of well-governed camps, flockedto the standard of the faith. The men who had set up that statute weresincere, chaste, regardless of lucre, and perhaps, where only themselveswere concerned, not unforgiving; but round that standard were assembledsuch gangs of rogues, ravishers, plunderers, and ferocious bravoes, aswere scarcely ever found under the flag of any state engaged in a meretemporal quarrel. In a very similar way was the Jacobin party composed. There was a small nucleus of enthusiasts; round that nucleus wasgathered a vast mass of ignoble depravity; and in all that mass therewas nothing so depraved and so ignoble as Barere. 

Then came those days when the most barbarous of all codes wasadministered by the most barbarous of all tribunals; when no man couldgreet his neighbours, or say his prayers, or dress his hair, withoutdanger of committing a capital crime; when spies lurked in every corner;when the guillotine was long and hard at work every morning; when thejails were filled as close as the hold of a slave-ship; when thegutters ran foaming with blood into the Seine; when it was death tobe great-niece of a captain of the royal guards, or half-brother of adoctor of the Sorbonne, to express a doubt whether assignats would notfall, to hint that the English had been victorious in the action of thefirst of June, to have a copy of one of Burke's pamphlets locked up in adesk, to laugh at a Jacobin for taking the name of Cassius or Timoleon, or to call the Fifth Sansculottide by its old superstitious name of StMatthew's Day. While the daily waggon-loads of victims were carriedto their doom through the streets of Paris, the Proconsuls whom thesovereign Committee had sent forth to the departments revelled in anextravagance of cruelty unknown even in the capital. The knife of thedeadly machine rose and fell too slow for their work of slaughter. Longrows of captives were mowed down with grapeshot. Holes were made in thebottom of crowded barges. Lyons was turned into a desert. At Arras eventhe cruel mercy of a speedy death was denied to the prisoners. Alldown the Loire, from Saumur to the sea, great flocks of crows and kitesfeasted on naked corpses, twined together in hideous embraces. Nomercy was shown to sex or age. The number of young lads and of girlsof seventeen who were murdered by that execrable government is to bereckoned by hundreds. Babies torn from the breast were tossed from piketo pike along the Jacobin ranks. One champion of liberty had his pocketswell stuffed with ears. Another swaggered about with the finger of alittle child in his hat. A few months had sufficed to degrade Francebelow the level of New Zealand. 

It is absurd to say that any amount of public danger can justify asystem like this, we do not say on Christian principles, we do notsay on the principles of a high morality, but even on principlesof Machiavellian policy. It is true that great emergencies call foractivity and vigilance; it is true that they justify severity which, inordinary times, would deserve the name of cruelty. But indiscriminateseverity can never, under any circumstances, be useful. It is plainthat the whole efficacy of punishment depends on the care with which theguilty are distinguished. Punishment which strikes the guilty and theinnocent promiscuously, operates merely like a pestilence or a greatconvulsion of nature, and has no more tendency to prevent offencesthan the cholera, or an earthquake like that of Lisbon, would have. Theenergy for which the Jacobin administration is praised was merely theenergy of the Malay who maddens himself with opium, draws his knife, andruns amuck through the streets, slashing right and left at friendsand foes. Such has never been the energy of truly great rulers; ofElizabeth, for example, of Oliver, or of Frederick. They were not, indeed, scrupulous. But, had they been less scrupulous than they were, the strength and amplitude of their minds would have preserved themfrom crimes such as those which the small men of the Committee of PublicSafety took for daring strokes of policy. The great Queen who so longheld her own against foreign and domestic enemies, against temporal andspiritual arms; the great Protector who governed with more than regalpower, in despite both of royalists and republicans; the great Kingwho, with a beaten army and an exhausted treasury, defended his littledominions to the last against the united efforts of Russia, Austria, andFrance; with what scorn would they have heard that it was impossible forthem to strike a salutary terror into the disaffected without sendingschool-boys and school-girls to death by cart-loads and boat-loads!

The popular notion is, we believe, that the leading Terrorists werewicked men, but, at the same time, great men. We can see nothing greatabout them but their wickedness. That their policy was daringly originalis a vulgar error. Their policy is as old as the oldest accounts whichwe have of human misgovernment. It seemed new in France and in theeighteenth century only because it had been long disused, for excellentreasons, by the enlightened part of mankind. But it has alwaysprevailed, and still prevails, in savage and half-savage nations, and isthe chief cause which prevents such nations from making advances towardscivilisation. Thousands of deys, of beys, of pachas, of rajahs, ofnabobs, have shown themselves as great masters of statecraft as themembers of the Committee of Public Safety. Djezzar, we imagine, wassuperior to any of them in their new line. In fact, there is not a pettytyrant in Asia or Africa so dull or so unlearned as not to be fullyqualified for the business of Jacobin police and Jacobin finance. To behead people by scores without caring whether they are guilty orinnocent; to wring money out of the rich by the help of jailers andexecutioners; to rob the public creditor, and to put him to death ifhe remonstrates; to take loaves by force out of the bakers' shops; toclothe and mount soldiers by seizing on one man's wool and linen, and onanother man's horses and saddles, without compensation; is of allmodes of governing the simplest and most obvious. Of its morality we atpresent say nothing. But surely it requires no capacity beyond that ofa barbarian or a child. By means like those which we have described, theCommittee of Public Safety undoubtedly succeeded, for a short time, inenforcing profound submission, and in raising immense funds. But to enforce submission by butchery, and to raise funds by spoliation, is notstatesmanship. The real statesman is he who, in troubled times, keepsdown the turbulent without unnecessarily harrassing the well-affected;and who, when great pecuniary resources are needed, provides for thepublic exigencies without violating the security of property and dryingup the sources of future prosperity. Such a statesman, we are confident, might, in 1793, have preserved the independence of France withoutshedding a drop of innocent blood, without plundering a singlewarehouse. Unhappily, the Republic was subject to men who were meredemagogues and in no sense statesmen. They could declaim at a club. Theycould lead a rabble to mischief. But they had no skill to conduct theaffairs of an empire. The want of skill they supplied for a time byatrocity and blind violence. For legislative ability, fiscal ability, military ability, diplomatic ability, they had one substitute, theguillotine. Indeed their exceeding ignorance, and the barrenness oftheir invention, are the best excuse for their murders and robberies. Wereally believe that they would not have cut so many throats, and pickedso many pockets, if they had known how to govern in any other way. 

That under their administration the war against the European Coalitionwas successfully conducted is true. But that war had been successfullyconducted before their elevation, and continued to be successfullyconducted after their fall. Terror was not the order of the day whenBrussels opened its gates to Dumourier. Terror had ceased to be theorder of the day when Piedmont and Lombardy were conquered by Bonaparte. The truth is, that France was saved, not by the Committee of PublicSafety, but by the energy, patriotism, and valour of the French people. Those high qualities were victorious in spite of the incapacity ofrulers whose administration was a tissue, not merely of crimes, but ofblunders. 

We have not time to tell how the leaders of the savage faction at lengthbegan to avenge mankind on each other: how the craven Hebert was draggedwailing and trembling to his doom; how the nobler Danton, moved by alate repentance, strove in vain to repair the evil which he had wrought, and half redeemed the great crime of September by man fully encounteringdeath in the cause of mercy. 

Our business is with Barere. In all those things he was not onlyconsenting, but eagerly and joyously forward. Not merely was he oneof the guilty administration. He was the man to whom was especiallyassigned the office of proposing and defending outrages on justice andhumanity, and of furnishing to atrocious schemes an appropriate garb ofatrocious rodomontade. Barere first proclaimed from the tribune of theConvention that terror must be the order of the day. It was by Barerethat the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris was provided with the aid of apublic accuser worthy of such a court, the infamous Fouquier Tinville. It was Barere who, when one of the old members of the National Assemblyhad been absolved by the Revolutionary Tribunal, gave orders that afresh jury should be summoned. "Acquit one of the National Assembly!"he cried. "The Tribunal is turning against the Revolution. " It isunnecessary to say that the prisoner's head was soon in the basket. Itwas Barere who moved that the city of Lyons should be destroyed. "Letthe plough, " he cried from the tribune, "pass over her. Let her namecease to exist. The rebels are conquered; but are they all exterminated?No weakness. No mercy. Let every one be smitten. Two words will sufficeto tell the whole. Lyons made war on liberty; Lyons is no more. "When Toulon was taken Barere came forward to announce the event. "Theconquest, " said the apostate Brissotine, "won by the Mountain over theBrissotines must be commemorated by a mark set on the place where Toulononce stood. " The national thunder must crush the house of every traderin the town. When Camille Desmoulins, long distinguished among therepublicans by zeal and ability, dared to raise his eloquent voiceagainst the Reign of Terror, and to point out the close analogy betweenthe government which then oppressed France and the government of theworst of the Caesars, Barere rose to complain of the weak compassionwhich tried to revive the hopes of the aristocracy. "Whoever, " he said, "is nobly born is a man to be suspected. Every priest, every frequenterof the old court, every lawyer, every banker, is a man to be suspected. Every person who grumbles at the course which the Revolution takes is aman to be suspected. There are whole castes already tried and condemned. There are callings which carry their doom with them. There are relationsof blood which the law regards with an evil eye. Republicans ofFrance!" yelled the renegade Girondist, the old enemy of theMountain--"Republicans of France! the Brissotines led you by gentlemeans to slavery. The Mountain leads you by strong measures to freedom. Oh! who can count the evils which a false compassion may produce?"When the friends of Danton mustered courage to express a wish that theConvention would at least hear him in his own defence before it sent himto certain death, the voice of Barere was the loudest in opposition totheir prayer. When the crimes of Lebon, one of the worst, if not thevery worst, of the viceregents of the Committee of Public Safety, had somaddened the people of the Department of the North that they resorted tothe desperate expedient of imploring the protection of the Convention, Barere pleaded the cause of the accused tyrant, and threatened thepetitioners with the utmost vengeance of the government. "Thesecharges, " he said, "have been suggested by wily aristocrats. The man whocrushes the enemies of the people, though he may be hurried by hiszeal into some excesses, can never be a proper object of censure. Theproceedings of Lebon may have been a little harsh as to form. " One ofthe small irregularities thus gently censured was this: Lebon kept awretched man a quarter of an hour under the knife of the guillotine, in order to torment him, by reading to him, before he was despatched, a letter, the contents of which were supposed to be such as wouldaggravate even the bitterness of death. "But what, " proceeded Barere, "is not permitted to the hatred of a republican against aristocracy? Howmany generous sentiments atone for what may perhaps seem acrimonious inthe prosecution of public enemies? Revolutionary measures are alwaysto be spoken of with respect. Liberty is a virgin whose veil it is notlawful to lift. "

After this, it would be idle to dwell on facts which would indeed, of themselves, suffice to render a name infamous, but which make noperceptible addition to the great infamy of Barere. It would be idle, for example, to relate how he, a man of letters, a member of an Academyof Inscriptions, was foremost in that war against learning, art, andhistory which disgraced the Jacobin government; how he recommended ageneral conflagration of libraries; how he proclaimed that all recordsof events anterior to the Revolution ought to be destroyed; how he laidwaste the Abbey of St Denis, pulled down monuments consecrated by theveneration of ages, and scattered on the wind the dust of ancient kings. He was, in truth, seldom so well employed as when he turned for a momentfrom making war on the living to make war on the dead. 

Equally idle would it be to dilate on his sensual excesses. That inBarere as in the whole breed of Neros, Caligulas, and Domitians whom heresembled, voluptuousness was mingled with cruelty; that he withdrew, twice in every decade, from the work of blood, to the smiling gardens ofClichy, and there forgot public cares in the madness of wine and in thearms of courtesans, has often been repeated. M. Hippolyte Carnot doesnot altogether deny the truth of these stories, but justly observes thatBarere's dissipation was not carried to such a point as to interferewith his industry. Nothing can be more true. Barere was by no means somuch addicted to debauchery as to neglect the work of murder. It was hisboast that, even during his hours of recreation, he cut out work for theRevolutionary Tribunal. To those who expressed a fear that his exertionswould hurt his health, he gaily answered that he was less busy than theythought. "The guillotine, " he said, "does all; the guillotine governs. "For ourselves, we are much more disposed to look indulgently onthe pleasures which he allowed to himself than on the pain which heinflicted on his neighbours. 

 "Atque utinam his potius nugis tota illa dedisset Tempora saevitiae, claras quibus abstulit urbi Illustresque animas, impune ac vindice nullo. "

An immoderate appetite for sensual gratifications is undoubtedly ablemish on the fame of Henry the Fourth, of Lord Somers, of Mr Fox. Butthe vices of honest men are the virtues of Barere. 

And now Barere had become a really cruel man. It was from merepusillanimity that he had perpetrated his first great crimes. But thewhole history of our race proves that the taste for the misery of othersis a taste which minds not naturally ferocious may too easily acquire, and which, when once acquired, is as strong as any of the propensitieswith which we are born. A very few months had sufficed to bring this maninto a state of mind in which images of despair, wailing, and death hadan exhilarating effect on him, and inspired him as wine and love inspiremen of free and joyous natures. The cart creaking under its dailyfreight of victims, ancient men and lads, and fair young girls, thebinding of the hands, the thrusting of the head out of the littlenational sash-window, the crash of the axe, the pool of blood beneaththe scaffold, the heads rolling by scores in the panier--these thingswere to him what Lalage and a cask of Falernian were to Horace, whatRosette and a bottle of iced champagne are to De Beranger. As soon ashe began to speak of slaughter his heart seemed to be enlarged, andhis fancy to become unusually fertile of conceits and gasconades. Robespierre, Saint Just, and Billaud, whose barbarity was the effect ofearnest and gloomy hatred, were, in his view, men who made a toil of apleasure. Cruelty was no such melancholy business, to be gone aboutwith an austere brow and a whining tone; it was a recreation, fitlyaccompanied by singing and laughing. In truth, Robespierre and Bareremight be well compared to the two renowned hangmen of Louis theEleventh. They were alike insensible of pity, alike bent on havoc. But, while they murdered, one of them frowned and canted, the other grinnedand joked. For our own part, we prefer Jean qui pleure to Jean qui rit. 

In the midst of the funeral gloom which overhung Paris, a gaietystranger and more ghastly than the horrors of the prison and thescaffold distinguished the dwelling of Barere. Every morning a crowd ofsuitors assembled to implore his protection. He came forth in his richdressing-gown, went round the antechamber, dispensed smiles and promisesamong the obsequious crowd, addressed himself with peculiar animation toevery handsome woman who appeared in the circle, and complimented her inthe florid style of Gascony on the bloom of her cheeks and the lustre ofher eyes. When he had enjoyed the fear and anxiety of his suppliants hedismissed them, and flung all their memorials unread into the fire. This was the best way, he conceived, to prevent arrears of business fromaccumulating. Here he was only an imitator. Cardinal Dubois had been inthe habit of clearing his table of papers in the same way. Nor was thisthe only point in which we could point out a resemblance between theworst statesman of the monarchy and the worst statesman of the republic. 

Of Barere's peculiar vein of pleasantry a notion may be formed froman anecdote which one of his intimate associates, a juror of therevolutionary tribunal, has related. A courtesan who bore a conspicuouspart in the orgies of Clichy implored Barere to use his power againsta head-dress which did not suit her style of face, and which a rivalbeauty was trying to bring into fashion. One of the magistrates of thecapital was summoned and received the necessary orders. Aristocracy, Barere said, was again rearing its front. These new wigs werecounter-revolutionary. He had reason to know that they were made out ofthe long fair hair of handsome aristocrats who had died by the nationalchopper. Every lady who adorned herself with the relics of criminalsmight justly be suspected of incivism. This ridiculous lie imposed onthe authorities of Paris. Female citizens were solemnly warnedagainst the obnoxious ringlets, and were left to choose between theirhead-dresses and their heads. Barere's delight at the success of thisfacetious fiction was quite extravagant: he could not tell the storywithout going into such convulsions of laughter as made his hearers hopethat he was about to choke. There was something peculiarly tickling andexhilarating to his mind in this grotesque combination of the frivolouswith the horrible, of false locks and curling-irons with spoutingarteries and reeking hatchets. 

But, though Barere succeeded in earning the honourable nicknames of theWitling of Terror, and the Anacreon of the Guillotine, there was oneplace where it was long remembered to his disadvantage that he had, fora time, talked the language of humanity and moderation. That place wasthe Jacobin club. Even after he had borne the chief part in the massacreof the Girondists, in the murder of the Queen, in the destruction ofLyons, he durst not show himself within that sacred precinct. At onemeeting of the society, a member complained that the committee to whichthe supreme direction of affairs was entrusted, after all the changeswhich had been made, still contained one man who was not trustworthy. Robespierre, whose influence over the Jacobins was boundless, undertookthe defence of his colleague, owned there was some ground for whathad been said, but spoke highly of Barere's industry and aptitude forbusiness. This seasonable interposition silenced the accuser; but it waslong before the neophyte could venture to appear at the club. 

At length a masterpiece of wickedness, unique, we think, even amongBarere's great achievements, obtained his full pardon even from thatrigid conclave. The insupportable tyranny of the Committee of PublicSafety had at length brought the minds of men, and even of women, intoa fierce and hard temper, which defied or welcomed death. The life whichmight be any morning taken away, in consequence of the whisper of aprivate enemy, seemed of little value. It was something to die aftersmiting one of the oppressors; it was something to bequeath tothe surviving tyrants a terror not inferior to that which they hadthemselves inspired. Human nature, hunted and worried to the utmost, now turned furiously to bay. Fouquier Tinville was afraid to walkthe streets; a pistol was snapped at Collot D'Herbois; a young girl, animated apparently by the spirit of Charlotte Corday, attemptedto obtain an interview with Robespierre. Suspicions arose; she wassearched; and two knives were found about her. She was questioned, andspoke of the Jacobin domination with resolute scorn and aversion. It isunnecessary to say that she was sent to the guillotine. Barere declaredfrom the tribune that the cause of these attempts was evident. Pitt andhis guineas had done the whole. The English Government had organised avast system of murder, had armed the hand of Charlotte Corday, andhad now, by similar means, attacked two of the most eminent friends ofliberty in France. It is needless to say that these imputations were, not only false, but destitute of all show of truth. Nay, they weredemonstrably absurd: for the assassins to whom Barere referred rushedon certain death, a sure proof that they were not hirelings. The wholewealth of England would not have bribed any sane person to do whatCharlotte Corday did. But, when we consider her as an enthusiast, herconduct is perfectly natural. Even those French writers who are childishenough to believe that the English Government contrived the infernalmachine and strangled the Emperor Paul have fully acquitted Mr Pitt ofall share in the death of Marat and in the attempt on Robespierre. Yet on calumnies so futile as those which we have mentioned did Barereground a motion at which all Christendom stood aghast. He proposed adecree that no quarter should be given to any English or Hanoveriansoldier. (M. Hippolyte Carnot does his best to excuse this decree. Hisabuse of England is merely laughable. England has managed to deal withenemies of a very different sort from either himself or his hero. Onedisgraceful blunder, however, we think it right to notice. M. HippolyteCarnot asserts that a motion similar to that of Barere was made inthe English Parliament by the late Lord Fitzwilliam. This assertion isfalse. We defy M. Hippolyte Carnot to state the date and terms ofthe motion of which he speaks. We do not accuse him of intentionalmisrepresentation; but we confidently accuse him of extreme ignoranceand temerity. Our readers will be amused to learn on what authority hehas ventured to publish such a fable. He quotes, not the journals ofthe Lords, not the Parliamentary Debates, but a ranting message ofthe Executive Directory to the Five Hundred, a message, too, the wholemeaning of which he has utterly misunderstood. ) His Carmagnole wasworthy of the proposition with which it concluded. "That one Englishmanshould be spared, that for the slaves of George, for the human machinesof York, the vocabulary of our armies should contain such a word asgenerosity, this is what the National Convention cannot endure. Warto the death against every English soldier. If last year, at Dunkirk, quarter had been refused to them when they asked it on their knees, if our troops had exterminated them all, instead of suffering them toinfest our fortresses by their presence, the English government wouldnot have renewed its attack on our frontiers this year. It is only thedead man who never comes back. What is this moral pestilence which hasintroduced into our armies false ideas of humanity? That the Englishwere to be treated with indulgence was the philanthropic notion of theBrissotines; it was the patriotic practice of Dumourier. But humanityconsists in exterminating our enemies. No mercy to the execrableEnglishman. Such are the sentiments of the true Frenchman; for heknows that he belongs to a nation revolutionary as nature, powerfulas freedom, ardent as the saltpetre which she has just torn fromthe entrails of the earth. Soldiers of liberty, when victory placesEnglishmen at your mercy, strike! None of them must return to theservile soil of Great Britain; none must pollute the free soil ofFrance. "

The Convention, thoroughly tamed and silenced, acquiesced in Barere'smotion without debate. And now at last the doors of the Jacobin Clubwere thrown open to the disciple who had surpassed his masters. He wasadmitted a member by acclamation, and was soon selected to preside. 

For a time he was not without hope that his decree would be carriedinto full effect. Intelligence arrived from the seat of war of a sharpcontest between some French and English troops, in which the Republicanshad the advantage, and in which no prisoners had been made. Suchthings happen occasionally in all wars. Barere, however, attributedthe ferocity of this combat to his darling decree, and entertained theConvention with another Carmagnole. 

"The Republicans, " he said, "saw a division in red uniform at adistance. The red-coats are attacked with the bayonet. Not one ofthem escapes the blows of the Republicans. All the red-coats have beenkilled. No mercy, no indulgence, has been shown towards the villains. Not an Englishman whom the Republicans could reach is now living. Howmany prisoners should you guess that we have made? One single prisoneris the result of this great day. "

And now this bad man's craving for blood had become insatiable. The morehe quaffed, the more he thirsted. He had begun with the English;but soon he came down with a proposition for new massacres. "All thetroops, " he said, "of the coalesced tyrants in garrison at Conde, Valenciennes, Le Quesnoy, and Landrecies, ought to be put to the swordunless they surrender at discretion in twenty-four hours. The English, of course, will be admitted to no capitulation whatever. With theEnglish we have no treaty but death. As to the rest, surrender atdiscretion in twenty-four hours, or death, these are our conditions. If the slaves resist, let them feel the edge of the sword. " And then hewaxed facetious. "On these terms the Republic is willing to give them alesson in the art of war. " At that jest, some hearers, worthy of sucha speaker, set up a laugh. Then he became serious again. "Let the enemyperish, " he cried, "I have already said it from this tribune. It is onlythe dead man who never comes back. Kings will not conspire against us inthe grave. Armies will not fight against us when they are annihilated. Let our war with them be a war of extermination. What pity is due toslaves whom the Emperor leads to war under the cane; whom the King ofPrussia beats to the shambles with the flat of the sword; and whom theDuke of York makes drunk with rum and gin?" And at the rum and gin theMountain and the galleries laughed again. 

If Barere had been able to effect his purpose, it is difficult toestimate the extent of the calamity which he would have brought on thehuman race. No government, however averse to cruelty, could, in justiceto its own subjects, have given quarter to enemies who gave none. Retaliation would have been, not merely justifiable, but a sacred duty. It would have been necessary for Howe and Nelson to make every Frenchsailor whom they took walk the plank. England has no peculiar reason todread the introduction of such a system. On the contrary, the operationof Barere's new law of war would have been more unfavourable to hiscountrymen than to ours; for we believe that, from the beginning to theend of the war, there never was a time at which the number of Frenchprisoners in England was not greater than the number of Englishprisoners in France; and so, we apprehend, it will be in all wars whileEngland retains her maritime superiority. Had the murderous decree ofthe Convention been in force from 1794 to 1815, we are satisfied that, for every Englishman slain by the French, at least three Frenchmen wouldhave been put to the sword by the English. It is, therefore, not asEnglishmen, but as members of the great society of mankind, that wespeak with indignation and horror of the change which Barere attemptedto introduce. The mere slaughter would have been the smallest part ofthe evil. The butchering of a single unarmed man in cold blood, under anact of the legislature, would have produced more evil than the carnageof ten such fields as Albuera. Public law would have been subverted fromthe foundations; national enmities would have been inflamed to a degreeof rage which happily it is not easy for us to conceive; cordial peacewould have been impossible. The moral character of the European nationswould have been rapidly and deeply corrupted; for in all countries thosemen whose calling is to put their lives in jeopardy for the defence ofthe public weal enjoy high consideration, and are considered as the bestarbitrators on points of honour and manly bearing. With the standard ofmorality established in the military profession the general standardof morality must to a great extent sink or rise. It is, therefore, afortunate circumstance that, during a long course of years, respect forthe weak and clemency towards the vanquished have been considered asqualities not less essential to the accomplished soldier than personalcourage. How long would this continue to be the case, if the slaying ofprisoners were a part of the daily duty of the warrior? What man of kindand generous nature would, under such a system, willingly bear arms?Who, that was compelled to bear arms, would long continue kind andgenerous? And is it not certain that, if barbarity towards the helplessbecame the characteristic of military men, the taint must rapidly spreadto civil and to domestic life, and must show itself in all the dealingsof the strong with the weak, of husbands with wives, of employers withwork men, of creditors with debtors?

But, thank God, Barere's decree was a mere dead letter. It was tobe executed by men very different from those who, in the interior ofFrance, were the instruments of the Committee of Public Safety, whoprated at Jacobin Clubs, and ran to Fouquier Tinville with charges ofincivism against women whom they could not seduce, and bankers from whomthey could not extort money. The warriors who, under Hoche, had guardedthe walls of Dunkirk, and who, under Kleber, had made good the defenceof the wood of Monceaux, shrank with horror from an office moredegrading than that of the hangman. "The Convention, " said an officer tohis men, "has sent orders that all the English prisoners shall be shot. ""We will not shoot them" answered a stout-hearted sergeant. "Send themto the Convention. If the deputies take pleasure in killing a prisoner, they may kill him themselves, and eat him too, like savages asthey are. " This was the sentiment of the whole army. Bonaparte, whothoroughly understood war, who at Jaffa and elsewhere gave ample proofthat he was not unwilling to strain the laws of war to their utmostrigour, and whose hatred of England amounted to a folly, always spoke ofBarere's decree with loathing, and boasted that the army had refused toobey the Convention. 

Such disobedience on the part of any other class of citizens would havebeen instantly punished by wholesale massacre; but the Committeeof Public Safety was aware that the discipline which had tamed theunwarlike population of the fields and cities might not answer in camps. To fling people by scores out of a boat, and, when they catch hold ofit, to chop off their fingers with a hatchet, is undoubtedly a veryagreeable pastime for a thoroughbred Jacobin, when the sufferers are, as at Nantes, old confessors, young girls, or women with child. Butsuch sport might prove a little dangerous if tried upon grim ranks ofgrenadiers, marked with the scars of Hondschoote, and singed by thesmoke of Fleurus. 

Barere, however, found some consolation. If he could not succeed inmurdering the English and the Hanoverians, he was amply indemnified bya new and vast slaughter of his own countrymen and countrywomen. If thedefence which has been set up for the members of the Committee of PublicSafety had been well founded, if it had been true that they governedwith extreme severity only because the republic was in extreme peril, it is clear that the severity would have diminished as the perildiminished. But the fact is, that those cruelties for which the publicdanger is made a plea became more and more enormous as the danger becameless and less, and reached the full height when there was no longer anydanger at all. In the autumn of 1793, there was undoubtedly reason toapprehend that France might be unable to maintain the struggle againstthe European coalition. The enemy was triumphant on the frontiers. Morethan half the departments disowned the authority of the Convention. Butat that time eight or ten necks a day were thought an ample allowancefor the guillotine of the capital. In the summer of 1794, Bordeaux, Toulon, Caen, Lyons, Marseilles, had submitted to the ascendency ofParis. The French arms were victorious under the Pyrenees and onthe Sambre. Brussels had fallen. Prussia announced her intention ofwithdrawing from the contest. The Republic, no longer content withdefending her own independence, was beginning to meditate conquestbeyond the Alps and the Rhine. She was now more formidable to herneighbours than ever Louis the Fourteenth had been. And now theRevolutionary Tribunal of Paris was not content with forty, fifty, sixty heads in a morning. It was just after a series of victories, whichdestroyed the whole force of the single argument which has been urgedin defence of the system of terror, that the Committee of Public Safetyresolved to infuse into that system an energy hitherto unknown. It wasproposed to reconstruct the Revolutionary Tribunal, and to collect inthe space of two pages the whole revolutionary jurisprudence. Lists oftwelve judges and fifty jurors were made out from among the fiercestJacobins. The substantive law was simply this, that whatever thetribunal should think pernicious to the republic was a capital crime. The law of evidence was simply this, that whatever satisfied thejurors was sufficient proof. The law of procedure was of a piece witheverything else. There was to be an advocate against the prisoner, andno advocate for him. It was expressly declared that, if the jurors werein any manner convinced of the guilt of the prisoner, they might convicthim without hearing a single witness. The only punishment which thecourt could inflict was death. 

Robespierre proposed this decree. When he had read it, a murmur rosefrom the Convention. The fear which had long restrained the deputiesfrom opposing the Committee was overcome by a stronger fear. Everyman felt the knife at his throat. "The decree, " said one, "is of graveimportance. I move that it be printed and the debate be adjourned. Ifsuch a measure were adopted without time for consideration, I would blowmy brains out at once. " The motion for adjournment was seconded. ThenBarere sprang up. "It is impossible, " he said, "that there can beany difference of opinion among us as to a law like this, a law sofavourable in all respects to patriots; a law which insures the speedypunishment of conspirators. If there is to be an adjournment, I mustinsist that it shall not be for more than three days. " The oppositionwas overawed; the decree was passed; and, during the six weeks whichfollowed, the havoc was such as has never been known before. 

And now the evil was beyond endurance. That timid majority which hadfor a time supported the Girondists, and which had, after theirfall, contented itself with registering in silence the decrees of theCommittee of Public Safety, at length drew courage from despair. Leadersof bold and firm character were not wanting, men such as Fouche andTallien, who, having been long conspicuous among the chiefs of theMountain, now found that their own lives, or lives still dearer tothem than their own, were in extreme peril. Nor could it be longer keptsecret that there was a schism in the despotic committee. On one sidewere Robespierre, Saint Just, and Couthon; on the other, Collot andBillaud. Barere leaned towards these last, but only leaned towardsthem. As was ever his fashion when a great crisis was at hand, hefawned alternately on both parties, struck alternately at both, and heldhimself in readiness to chant the praises or to sign the death-warrantof either. In any event his Carmagnole was ready. The tree of liberty, the blood of traitors, the dagger of Brutus, the guineas of perfidiousAlbion, would do equally well for Billaud and for Robespierre. 

The first attack which was made on Robespierre was indirect. An oldwoman named Catherine Theot, half maniac, half impostor, was protectedby him, and exercised a strange influence over his mind; for he wasnaturally prone to superstition, and, having abjured the faith in whichhe had been brought up, was looking about for something to believe. Barere drew up a report against Catherine, which contained manyfacetious conceits, and ended, as might be expected, with a motionfor sending her and some other wretched creatures of both sexes tothe Revolutionary Tribunal, or, in other words, to death. This report, however, he did not dare to read to the Convention himself. Anothermember, less timid, was induced to farther the cruel buffoonery; and thereal author enjoyed in security the dismay and vexation of Robespierre. 

Barere now thought that he had done enough on one side, and that it wastime to make his peace with the other. On the seventh of Thermidor, he pronounced in the Convention a panegyric on Robespierre. "Thatrepresentative of the people, " he said, "enjoys a reputation forpatriotism, earned by five years of exertion, and by unalterablefidelity to the principles of independence and liberty. " On the eighthof Thermidor, it became clear that a decisive struggle was at hand. Robespierre struck the first blow. He mounted the tribune, and uttered along invective on his opponents. It was moved that his discourseshould be printed; and Barere spoke for the printing. The sense of theConvention soon appeared to be the other way; and Barere apologised forhis former speech, and implored his colleagues to abstain from disputeswhich could be agreeable only to Pitt and York. On the next day, theever-memorable ninth of Thermidor, came the real tug of war. Tallien, bravely taking his life in his hand, led the onset. Billaud followed;and then all that infinite hatred which had long been kept down byterror burst forth, and swept every barrier before it. When at lengththe voice of Robespierre, drowned by the President's bell, and by shoutsof "Down with the tyrant!" had died away in hoarse gasping, Barere rose. He began with timid and doubtful phrases, watched the effect ofevery word he uttered, and, when the feeling of the Assembly had beenunequivocally manifested, declared against Robespierre. But it was nottill the people out of doors, and especially the gunners of Paris, hadespoused the cause of the Convention, that Barere felt quite atease. Then he sprang to the tribune, poured forth a Carmagnole aboutPisistratus and Catiline, and concluded by moving that the heads ofRobespierre and Robespierre's accomplices should be cut off without atrial. The motion was carried. On the following morning the vanquishedmembers of the Committee of Public Safety and their principal adherentssuffered death. It was exactly one year since Barere had commenced hiscareer of slaughter by moving the proscription of his old allies theGirondists. We greatly doubt whether any human being has ever succeededin packing more wickedness into the space of three hundred andsixty-five days. 

The ninth of Thermidor is one of the great epochs in the history ofEurope. It is true that the three members of the Committee of PublicSafety who triumphed were by no means better men than the three whofell. Indeed, we are inclined to think that of these six statesmen theleast bad were Robespierre and Saint Just, whose cruelty was the effectof sincere fanaticism operating on narrow understandings and acrimonioustempers. The worst of the six was, beyond all doubt, Barere, who hadno faith in any part of the system which he upheld by persecution; who, while he sent his fellow-creatures to death for being the third cousinsof royalists, had not in the least made up his mind that a republicwas better than a monarchy; who, while he slew his old friends forfederalism, was himself far more a federalist than any of them; whohad become a murderer merely for his safety, and who continued to be amurderer merely for his pleasure. 

The tendency of the vulgar is to embody everything. Some individual isselected, and often selected very injudicially, as the representativeof every great movement of the public mind, of every great revolution inhuman affairs; and on this individual are concentrated all the love andall the hatred, all the admiration and all the contempt, which he oughtrightfully to share with a whole party, a whole sect, a whole nation, awhole generation. Perhaps no human being has suffered so much from thispropensity of the multitude as Robespierre. He is regarded, not merelyas what he was, an envious, malevolent zealot, but as the incarnation ofTerror, as Jacobinism personified. The truth is, that it was not byhim that the system of terror was carried to the last extreme. The mosthorrible days in the history of the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris werethose which immediately preceded the ninth of Thermidor. Robespierre hadthen ceased to attend the meetings of the sovereign Committee; and thedirection of affairs was really in the hands of Billaud, of Collot, andof Barere. 

It had never occurred to those three tyrants that, in overthrowingRobespierre, they were overthrowing that system of terror to which theywere more attached than he had ever been. Their object was to go onslaying even more mercilessly than before. But they had misunderstoodthe nature of the great crisis which had at last arrived. The yokeof the Committee was broken for ever. The Convention had regainedits liberty, had tried its strength, had vanquished and punishedits enemies. A great reaction had commenced. Twenty-four hours afterRobespierre had ceased to live, it was moved and carried, amidst loudbursts of applause, that the sittings of the Revolutionary Tribunalshould be suspended. Billaud was not at that moment present. He enteredthe hall soon after, learned with indignation what had passed, and movedthat the vote should be rescinded. But loud cries of "No, no!" rosefrom those benches which had lately paid mute obedience to his commands. Barere came forward on the same day, and abjured the Convention not torelax the system of terror. "Beware, above all things, " he cried, "of that fatal moderation which talks of peace and of clemency. Letaristocracy know that here she will find only enemies sternly bent onvengeance, and judges who have no pity. " But the day of the Carmagnoleswas over: the restraint of fear had been relaxed; and the hatredwith which the nation regarded the Jacobin dominion broke forth withungovernable violence. Not more strongly did the tide of public opinionrun against the old monarchy and aristocracy, at the time of the takingof the Bastile, than it now ran against the tyranny of the Mountain. From every dungeon the prisoners came forth as they had gone in, byhundreds. The decree which forbade the soldiers of the republic to givequarter to the English was repealed by an unanimous vote, amidst loudacclamations; nor, passed as it was, disobeyed as it was, and rescindedas it was, can it be with justice considered as a blemish on the fameof the French nation. The Jacobin Club was refractory. It was suppressedwithout resistance. The surviving Girondist deputies, who had concealedthemselves from the vengeance of their enemies in caverns and garrets, were readmitted to their seats in the Convention. No day passed withoutsome signal reparation of injustice; no street in Paris was without sometrace of the recent change. In the theatre, the bust of Marat was pulleddown from its pedestal and broken in pieces, amidst the applause ofthe audience. His carcass was ejected from the Pantheon. The celebratedpicture of his death, which had hung in the hall of the Convention, wasremoved. The savage inscriptions with which the walls of the city hadbeen covered disappeared; and, in place of death and terror, humanity, the watchword of the new rulers, was everywhere to be seen. In themeantime, the gay spirit of France, recently subdued by oppression, andnow elated by the joy of a great deliverance, wantoned in a thousandforms. Art, taste, luxury, revived. Female beauty regained itsempire--an empire strengthened by the remembrance of all the tenderand all the sublime virtues which women, delicately bred and reputedfrivolous, had displayed during the evil days. Refined manners, chivalrous sentiments, followed in the train of love. The dawn of theArctic summer day after the Arctic winter night, the great unsealingof the waters, the awakening of animal and vegetable life, the suddensoftening of the air, the sudden blooming of the flowers, the suddenbursting of old forests into verdure, is but a feeble type of thathappiest and most genial of revolutions, the revolution of the ninth ofThermidor. 

But, in the midst of the revival of all kind and generous sentiments, there was one portion of the community against which mercy itself seemedto cry out for vengeance. The chiefs of the late government and theirtools were now never named but as the men of blood, the drinkers ofblood, the cannibals. In some parts of France, where the creatures ofthe Mountain had acted with peculiar barbarity, the populace took thelaw into its own hands and meted out justice to the Jacobins with thetrue Jacobin measure, but at Paris the punishments were inflicted withorder and decency, and were few when compared with the number, andlenient when compared with the enormity, of the crimes. Soon after theninth of Thermidor, two of the vilest of mankind, Fouquier Tinville, whom Barere had placed at the Revolutionary Tribunal, and Lebon, whomBarere had defended in the Convention, were placed under arrest. A thirdmiscreant soon shared their fate, Carrier, the tyrant of Nantes. Thetrials of these men brought to light horrors surpassing anything thatSuetonius and Lampridius have related of the worst Caesars. But it wasimpossible to punish subordinate agents, who, bad as they were, had onlyacted in accordance with the spirit of the government which they served, and, at the same time, to grant impunity to the heads of the wickedadministration. A cry was raised, both within and without the Conventionfor justice on Collot, Billaud, and Barere. 

Collot and Billaud, with all their vices, appear to have been men ofresolute natures. They made no submission; but opposed to the hatredof mankind, at first a fierce resistance, and afterwards a dogged andsullen endurance. Barere, on the other hand, as soon as he began tounderstand the real nature of the revolution of Thermidor, attempted toabandon the Mountain, and to obtain admission among his old friends ofthe moderate party. He declared everywhere that he had never been infavour of severe measures; that he was a Girondist; that he had alwayscondemned and lamented the manner in which the Brissotine deputies hadbeen treated. He now preached mercy from that tribune from which he hadrecently preached extermination. "The time, " he said, "has come at whichour clemency may be indulged without danger. We may now safelyconsider temporary imprisonment as an adequate punishment for politicalmisdemeanours. " It was only a fortnight since, from the same place, he had declaimed against the moderation which dared even to talk ofclemency; it was only a fortnight since he had ceased to send men andwomen to the guillotine of Paris, at the rate of three hundred a week. He now wished to make his peace with the moderate party at the expenseof the Terrorists, as he had, a year before, made his peace withthe Terrorists at the expense of the moderate party. But he wasdisappointed. He had left himself no retreat. His face, his voice, hisrants, his jokes, had become hateful to the Convention. When he spokehe was interrupted by murmurs. Bitter reflections were daily cast on hiscowardice and perfidy. On one occasion Carnot rose to give an accountof a victory, and so far forgot the gravity of his own character asto indulge in the sort of oratory which Barere had affected on similaroccasions. He was interrupted by cries of "No more Carmagnoles!" "Nomore of Barere's puns!"

At length, five months after the revolution of Thermidor, the Conventionresolved that a committee of twenty-one members should be appointed toexamine into the conduct of Billaud, Collot, and Barere. In some weeksthe report was made. From that report we learn that a paper had beendiscovered, signed by Barere, and containing a proposition for addingthe last improvement to the system of terror. France was to be dividedinto circuits; itinerant revolutionary tribunals, composed of trustyJacobins, were to move from department to department; and the guillotinewas to travel in their train. 

Barere, in his defence, insisted that no speech or motion which he hadmade in the Convention could, without a violation of the freedom ofdebate, be treated as a crime. He was asked how he could resort to sucha mode of defence, after putting to death so many deputies on account ofopinions expressed in the Convention. He had nothing to say, but thatit was much to be regretted that the sound principle had ever beenviolated. 

He arrogated to himself a large share of the merit of the revolution inThermidor. The men who had risked their lives to effect that revolution, and who knew that, if they had failed, Barere would, in all probability, have moved the decree for beheading them without a trial, and have drawnup a proclamation announcing their guilt and their punishment to allFrance, were by no means disposed to acquiesce in his claims. He wasreminded that, only forty-eight hours before the decisive conflict, he had, in the tribune, been profuse of adulation to Robespierre. Hisanswer to this reproach is worthy of himself. "It was necessary, " hesaid, "to dissemble. It was necessary to flatter Robespierre's vanity, and, by panegyric, to impel him to the attack. This was the motive whichinduced me to load him with those praises of which you complain. Whoever blamed Brutus for dissembling with Tarquin?"

The accused triumvirs had only one chance of escaping punishment. Therewas severe distress at that moment among the working people of thecapital. This distress the Jacobins attributed to the reaction ofThermidor, to the lenity with which the aristocrats were now treated, and to the measures which had been adopted against the chiefs of thelate administration. Nothing is too absurd to be believed by a populacewhich has not breakfasted, and which does not know how it is to dine. The rabble of the Faubourg St Antoine rose, menaced the deputies, anddemanded with loud cries the liberation of the persecuted patriots. Butthe Convention was no longer such as it had been, when similar meanswere employed too successfully against the Girondists. Its spiritwas roused. Its strength had been proved. Military means were at itscommand. The tumult was suppressed: and it was decreed that same eveningthat Collot, Billaud, and Barere should instantly be removed to adistant place of confinement. 

The next day the order of the Convention was executed. The account whichBarere has given of his journey is the most interesting and the mosttrustworthy part of these Memoirs. There is no witness so infamous thata court of justice will not take his word against himself; and evenBarere may be believed when he tells us how much he was hated anddespised. 

The carriage in which he was to travel passed, surrounded by armedmen, along the street of St Honore. A crowd soon gathered round it andincreased every moment. On the long flight of steps before the church ofSt Roch stood rows of eager spectators. It was with difficulty thatthe coach could make its way through those who hung upon it, hooting, cursing, and striving to burst the doors. Barere thought his life indanger, and was conducted at his own request to a public office, wherehe hoped that he might find shelter till the crowd should disperse. In the meantime, another discussion on his fate took place in theConvention. It was proposed to deal with him as he had dealt with bettermen, to put him out of the pale of the law, and to deliver him at oncewithout any trial to the headsman. But the humanity which, sincethe ninth of Thermidor, had generally directed the public councilsrestrained the deputies from taking this course. 

It was now night; and the streets gradually became quiet. The clockstruck twelve; and Barere, under a strong guard, again set forth on hisjourney. He was conducted over the river to the place where the Orleansroad branches off from the southern boulevard. Two travelling carriagesstood there. In one of them was Billaud, attended by two officers; inthe other two more officers were waiting to receive Barere. Collot wasalready on the road. 

At Orleans, a city which had suffered cruelly from the Jacobin tyranny, the three deputies were surrounded by a mob bent on tearing them topieces. All the national guards of the neighbourhood were assembled;and this force was not greater than the emergency required; for themultitude pursued the carriages far on the road to Blois. 

At Amboise the prisoners learned that Tours was ready to receive them. The stately bridge was occupied by a throng of people, who swore thatthe men under whose rule the Loire had been choked with corpses shouldhave full personal experience of the nature of a noyade. In consequenceof this news, the officers who had charge of the criminals made sucharrangements that the carriages reached Tours at two in the morning, anddrove straight to the post-house. Fresh horses were instantly ordered;and the travellers started again at full gallop. They had, in truth, not a moment to lose; for the alarm had been given; lights were seen inmotion; and the yells of a great multitude, disappointed of its revenge, mingled with the sound of the departing wheels. 

At Poitiers there was another narrow escape. As the prisoners quittedthe post-house, they saw the whole population pouring in fury down thesteep declivity on which the city is built. They passed near Niort, but could not venture to enter it. The inhabitants came forth withthreatening aspect, and vehemently cried to the postillions to stop; butthe postillions urged the horses to full speed, and soon left the townbehind. Through such dangers the men of blood were brought in safety toRochelle. 

Oleron was the place of their destination, a dreary island beaten by theraging waves of the Bay of Biscay. The prisoners were confined in thecastle; each had a single chamber, at the door of which a guard wasplaced; and each was allowed the ration of a single soldier. Theywere not allowed to communicate either with the garrison or with thepopulation of the island; and soon after their arrival they were deniedthe indulgence of walking on the ramparts. The only place where theywere suffered to take exercise was the esplanade where the troops weredrilled. 

They had not been long in this situation when news came that theJacobins of Paris had made a last attempt to regain ascendency in thestate, that the hall of the Convention had been forced by a furiouscrowd, that one of the deputies had been murdered and his head fixed ona pike, that the life of the President had been for a time in imminentdanger, and that some members of the legislature had not been ashamed tojoin the rioters. But troops had arrived in time to prevent amassacre. The insurgents had been put to flight; the inhabitants ofthe disaffected quarters of the capital had been disarmed; the guiltydeputies had suffered the just punishment of their treason; and thepower of the Mountain was broken for ever. These events strengthened theaversion with which the system of terror and the authors of that systemwere regarded. One member of the Convention had moved that the threeprisoners of Oleron should be put to death; another, that they should bebrought back to Paris, and tried by a council of war. These propositionswere rejected. But something was conceded to the party which called forseverity. A vessel which had been fitted out with great expedition atRochefort touched at Oleron; and it was announced to Collot and Billaudthat they must instantly go on board. They were forthwith conveyed toGuiana, where Collot soon drank himself to death with brandy. Billaudlived many years, shunning his fellow-creatures and shunned by them; anddiverted his lonely hours by teaching parrots to talk. Why a distinctionwas made between Barere and his companions in guilt, neither he nor anyother writer, as far as we know, has explained. It does not appear thatthe distinction was meant to be at all in his favour; for orders soonarrived from Paris, that he should be brought to trial for his crimesbefore the criminal court of the department of the Upper Charente. Hewas accordingly brought back to the continent, and confined during somemonths at Saintes, in an old convent which had lately been turned into ajail. 

While he lingered here, the reaction which had followed the great crisisof Thermidor met with a temporary check. The friends of the House ofBourbon, presuming on the indulgence with which they had been treatedafter the fall of Robespierre, not only ventured to avow their opinionswith little disguise, but at length took arms against the Convention, and were not put down till much blood had been shed in the streetsof Paris. The vigilance of the public authorities was therefore nowdirected chiefly against the Royalists; and the rigour with which theJacobins had lately been treated was somewhat relaxed. The Convention, indeed, again resolved that Barere should be sent to Guiana. But thisdecree was not carried into effect. The prisoner, probably with theconnivance of some powerful persons, made his escape from Saintes andfled to Bordeaux, where he remained in concealment during some years. There seems to have been a kind of understanding between him and thegovernment, that, as long as he hid himself, he should not be found, but that, if he obtruded himself on the public eye, he must take theconsequences of his rashness. 

While the constitution of 1795, with its Executive Directory, itsCouncil of Elders, and its Council of Five Hundred, was in operation, he continued to live under the ban of the law. It was in vain that hesolicited, even at moments when the politics of the Mountain seemed tobe again in the ascendant, a remission of the sentence pronounced by theConvention. Even his fellow-regicides, even the authors of the slaughterof Vendemiaire and of the arrests of Fructidor, were ashamed of him. 

About eighteen months after his escape from prison, his name was againbrought before the world. In his own province he still retained some ofhis early popularity. He had, indeed, never been in that province sincethe downfall of the monarchy. The mountaineers of Gascony were farremoved from the seat of government, and were but imperfectly informedof what passed there. They knew that their countryman had played animportant part, and that he had on some occasions promoted their localinterests; and they stood by him in his adversity and in his disgracewith a constancy which presents a singular contrast to his own abjectfickleness. All France was amazed to learn that the department of theUpper Pyrenees had chosen the proscribed tyrant a member of the Councilof Five Hundred. The council which, like our House of Commons, was thejudge of the election of its own members, refused to admit him. When hisname was read from the roll, a cry of indignation rose from the benches. "Which of you, " exclaimed one of the members, "would sit by the side ofsuch a monster?" "Not I, not I!" answered a crowd of voices. One deputydeclared that he would vacate his seat if the hall were polluted by thepresence of such a wretch. The election was declared null on the groundthat the person elected was a criminal skulking from justice; and manysevere reflections were thrown on the lenity which suffered him to bestill at large. 

He tried to make his peace with the Directory, by writing a bulkylibel on England, entitled, the Liberty of the Seas. He seems to haveconfidently expected that this work would produce a great effect. Heprinted three thousand copies, and in order to defray the expense ofpublication, sold one of his farms for the sum of ten thousand francs. The book came out; but nobody bought it, in consequence, if Barere isto be believed, of the villainy of Mr Pitt, who bribed the Directoryto order the Reviewers not to notice so formidable an attack on themaritime greatness of perfidious Albion. 

Barere had been about three years at Bordeaux when he receivedintelligence that the mob of the town designed him the honour of a visiton the ninth of Thermidor, and would probably administer to him whathe had, in his defence of his friend Lebon, described as substantialjustice under forms a little harsh. It was necessary for him to disguisehimself in clothes such as were worn by the carpenters of the dock. Inthis garb, with a bundle of wood shavings under his arm, he made hisescape into the vineyards which surrounded the city, lurked during somedays in a peasant's hut, and, when the dreaded anniversary was over, stole back into the city. A few months later he was again in danger. Henow thought that he should be nowhere so safe as in the neighbourhoodof Paris. He quitted Bordeaux, hastened undetected through those townswhere four years before his life had been in extreme danger, passedthrough the capital in the morning twilight, when none were in thestreets except shop-boys taking down the shutters, and arrived safeat the pleasant village of St Ouen on the Seine. Here he remained inseclusion during some months. In the meantime Bonaparte returned fromEgypt, placed himself at the head of a coalition of discontented parties, covered his designs with the authority of the Elders, drove the FiveHundred out of their hall at the point of the bayonet, and becameabsolute monarch of France under the name of First Consul. 

Barere assures us that these events almost broke his heart; that hecould not bear to see France again subject to a master; and that if therepresentatives had been worthy of that honourable name, they wouldhave arrested the ambitious general who insulted them. These feelings, however, did not prevent him from soliciting the protection of the newgovernment, and from sending to the First Consul a handsome copy of theessay on the Liberty of the Seas. 

The policy of Bonaparte was to cover all the past with a generaloblivion. He belonged half to the Revolution and half to the reaction. He was an upstart and a sovereign; and had therefore something incommon with the Jacobin, and something in common with the Royalist. All, whether Jacobins or Royalists, who were disposed to support hisgovernment, were readily received--all, whether Jacobins or Royalists, who showed hostility to his government, were put down and punished. Menwho had borne a part in the worst crimes of the Reign of Terror, and menwho had fought in the army of Conde, were to be found close together, both in his antechambers and in his dungeons. He decorated Fouche andMaury with the same cross. He sent Arena and Georges Cadoudal to thesame scaffold. From a government acting on such principles Barere easilyobtained the indulgence which the Directory had constantly refused togrant. The sentence passed by the Convention was remitted; and he wasallowed to reside at Paris. His pardon, it is true, was not granted inthe most honourable form; and he remained, during some time, under thespecial supervision of the police. He hastened, however, to pay hiscourt at the Luxembourg palace, where Bonaparte then resided, and washonoured with a few dry and careless words by the master of France. 

Here begins a new chapter of Barere's history. What passed between himand the Consular government cannot, of course, be so accurately known tous as the speeches and reports which he made in the Convention. It is, however, not difficult, from notorious facts, and from the admissionsscattered over these lying Memoirs, to form a tolerably accurate notionof what took place. Bonaparte wanted to buy Barere: Barere wanted tosell himself to Bonaparte. The only question was one of price; and therewas an immense interval between what was offered and what was demanded. 

Bonaparte, whose vehemence of will, fixedness of purpose, and relianceon his own genius were not only great but extravagant, looked withscorn on the most effeminate and dependent of human minds. He was quitecapable of perpetrating crimes under the influence either of ambition orof revenge: but he had no touch of that accursed monomania, that cravingfor blood and tears, which raged in some of the Jacobin chiefs. Toproscribe the Terrorists would have been wholly inconsistent with hispolicy; but, of all the classes of men whom his comprehensive systemincluded, he liked them the least; and Barere was the worst of them. This wretch had been branded with infamy, first by the Convention, andthen by the Council of Five Hundred. The inhabitants of four or fivegreat cities had attempted to tear him limb from limb. Nor were hisvices redeemed by eminent talents for administration or legislation. Itwould be unwise to place in any honourable or important post a man sowicked, so odious, and so little qualified to discharge high politicalduties. At the same time there was a way in which it seemed likely thathe might be of use to the government. The First Consul, as he afterwardsacknowledged, greatly overrated Barere's powers as a writer. The effectwhich the Reports of the Committee of Public Safety had produced by thecamp fires of the Republican armies had been great. Napoleon himself, when a young soldier, had been delighted by those compositions, which had much in common with the rhapsodies of his favourite poet, Macpherson. The taste, indeed, of the great warrior and statesmanwas never very pure. His bulletins, his general orders, and hisproclamations, are sometimes, it is true, masterpieces in their kind;but we too often detect, even in his best writing, traces of Fingal, andof the Carmagnoles. It is not strange, therefore, that he should havebeen desirous to secure the aid of Barere's pen. Nor was this the onlykind of assistance which the old member of the Committee of PublicSafety might render to the Consular government. He was likely to findadmission into the gloomy dens in which those Jacobins whose constancywas to be overcome by no reverse, or whose crimes admitted of noexpiation, hid themselves from the curses of mankind. No enterprise wastoo bold or too atrocious for minds crazed by fanatacism, and familiarwith misery and death. The government was anxious to have information ofwhat passed in their secret councils; and no man was better qualified tofurnish such information than Barere. 

For these reasons the First Consul was disposed to employ Barere as awriter and as a spy. But Barere--was it possible that he would submitto such a degradation? Bad as he was, he had played a great part. He hadbelonged to that class of criminals who filled the world with the renownof their crimes; he had been one of a cabinet which had ruled Francewith absolute power, and made war on all Europe with signal success. Nay, he had been, though not the most powerful, yet, with the singleexception of Robespierre, the most conspicuous member of that cabinet. His name had been a household word at Moscow and at Philadelphia, atEdinburgh and at Cadiz. The blood of the Queen of France, the blood ofthe greatest orators and philosophers of France, was on his hands. Hehad spoken; and it had been decreed that the plough should pass over thegreat city of Lyons. He had spoken again; and it had been decreed thatthe streets of Toulon should be razed to the ground. When depravity isplaced so high as his, the hatred which it inspires is mingled with awe. His place was with great tyrants, with Critias and Sylla, with Eccelinoand Borgia; not with hireling scribblers and police runners. 

 "Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; But shall the dignity of vice be lost?"

So sang Pope; and so felt Barere. When it was proposed to him to publisha journal in defence of the Consular government, rage and shame inspiredhim for the first and last time with something like courage. He hadfilled as large a space in the eyes of mankind as Mr Pitt or GeneralWashington; and he was coolly invited to descend at once to the levelof Mr Lewis Goldsmith. He saw, too, with agonies of envy, that a widedistinction was made between himself and the other statesmen of theRevolution who were summoned to the aid of the government. Thosestatesmen were required, indeed, to make large sacrifices of principle;but they were not called on to sacrifice what, in the opinion of thevulgar, constitutes personal dignity. They were made tribunes andlegislators, ambassadors and counsellors of state, ministers, senators, and consuls. They might reasonably expect to rise with the risingfortunes of their master; and, in truth, many of them were destinedto wear the badge of his Legion of Honour and of his order of the IronCrown; to be arch-chancellors and arch-treasurers, counts, dukes, andprinces. Barere, only six years before, had been far more powerful, farmore widely renowned, than any of them; and now, while they were thoughtworthy to represent the majesty of France at foreign courts, while theyreceived crowds of suitors in gilded antechambers, he was to pass hislife in measuring paragraphs, and scolding correctors of the press. Itwas too much. Those lips which had never before been able to fashionthemselves to a No, now murmured expostulation and refusal. "I couldnot"--these are his own words--"abase myself to such a point as to servethe First Consul merely in the capacity of a journalist, while so manyinsignificant, low, and servile people, such as the Treilhards, theRoederers, the Lebruns, the Marets, and others whom it is superfluous toname, held the first place in this government of upstarts. "

This outbreak of spirit was of short duration. Napoleon was inexorable. It is said indeed that he was, for a moment, half inclined to admitBarere into the Council of State; but the members of that bodyremonstrated in the strongest terms, and declared that such a nominationwould be a disgrace to them all. This plan was therefore relinquished. Thenceforth Barere's only chance of obtaining the patronage of thegovernment was to subdue his pride, to forget that there had been atime when, with three words, he might have had the heads of the threeconsuls, and to betake himself, humbly and industriously, to the task ofcomposing lampoons on England and panegyrics on Bonaparte. 

It has been often asserted, we know not on what grounds, that Barere wasemployed by the government not only as a writer, but as a censor ofthe writings of other men. This imputation he vehemently denies in hisMemoirs; but our readers will probably agree with us in thinking thathis denial leaves the question exactly where it was. 

Thus much is certain, that he was not restrained from exercising theoffice of censor by any scruple of conscience or honour; for he didaccept an office, compared with which that of censor, odious as it is, may be called an august and beneficent magistracy. He began to have whatare delicately called relations with the police. We are not sure thatwe have formed, or that we can convey, an exact notion of the natureof Barere's new calling. It is a calling unknown in our country. It hasindeed often happened in England that a plot has been revealed to thegovernment by one of the conspirators. The informer has sometimes beendirected to carry it fair towards his accomplices, and to let theevil design come to full maturity. As soon as his work is done, heis generally snatched from the public gaze, and sent to some obscurevillage or to some remote colony. The use of spies, even to this extent, is in the highest degree unpopular in England; but a political spy byprofession is a creature from which our island is as free as it is fromwolves. In France the race is well-known, and was never more numerous, more greedy, more cunning, or more savage, than under the government ofBonaparte. 

Our idea of a gentleman in relations with the Consular and Imperialpolice may perhaps be incorrect. Such as it is, we will try to convey itto our readers. We image to ourselves a well-dressed person, with asoft voice and affable manners. His opinions are those of the societyin which he finds himself, but a little stronger. He often complains, in the language of honest indignation, that what passes in privateconversation finds its way strangely to the government, and cautions hisassociates to take care what they say when they are not sure of theircompany. As for himself, he owns that he is indiscreet. He can neverrefrain from speaking his mind; and that is the reason that he is notprefect of a department. 

In a gallery of the Palais Royal he overhears two friends talkingearnestly about the King and the Count of Artois. He follows them intoa coffee-house, sits at the table next to them, calls for his half-dishand his small glass of cognac, takes up a journal, and seems occupiedwith the news. His neighbours go on talking without restraint, and inthe style of persons warmly attached to the exiled family. They depart;and he follows them half round the boulevards till he fairly tracks themto their apartments, and learns their names from the porters. Fromthat day every letter addressed to either of them is sent from thepost-office to the police, and opened. Their correspondents becomeknown to the government, and are carefully watched. Six or eight honestfamilies, in different parts of France, find themselves at once underthe frown of power without being able to guess what offence they havegiven. One person is dismissed from a public office; another learns withdismay that his promising son has been turned out of the Polytechnicschool. 

Next, the indefatigable servant of the state falls in with an oldrepublican, who has not changed with the times, who regrets the red capand the tree of liberty, who has not unlearned the Thee and Thou, andwho still subscribes his letters with "Health and Fraternity. " Into theears of this sturdy politician our friend pours forth a long seriesof complaints. What evil times! What a change since the days when theMountain governed France! What is the First Consul but a king under anew name? What is this Legion of Honour but a new aristocracy? The oldsuperstition is reviving with the old tyranny. There is a treaty withthe Pope, and a provision for the clergy. Emigrant nobles are returningin crowds, and are better received at the Tuileries than the men of the10th of August. This cannot last. What is life without liberty? Whatterrors has death to the true patriot? The old Jacobin catches fire, bestows and receives the fraternal hug, and hints that there will soonbe great news, and that the breed of Harmodius and Brutus is not quiteextinct. The next day he is close prisoner, and all his papers are inthe hands of the government. 

To this vocation, a vocation compared with which the life of a beggar, of a pickpocket, of a pimp, is honourable, did Barere now descend. Itwas his constant practice, as often as he enrolled himself in a newparty, to pay his footing with the heads of old friends. He was at firsta Royalist; and he made atonement by watering the tree of liberty withthe blood of Louis. He was then a Girondist; and he made atonement bymurdering Vergniaud and Gensonne. He fawned on Robespierre up to theeighth of Thermidor; and he made atonement by moving, on the ninth, thatRobespierre should be beheaded without a trial. He was now enlistedin the service of the new monarchy; and he proceeded to atone for hisrepublican heresies by sending republican throats to the guillotine. 

Among his most intimate associates was a Gascon named Demerville, whohad been employed in an office of high trust under the Committee ofPublic Safety. This man was fanatically attached to the Jacobin systemof politics, and, in conjunction with other enthusiasts of the sameclass, formed a design against the First Consul. A hint of this designescaped him in conversation with Barere. Barere carried the intelligenceto Lannes, who commanded the Consular Guards. Demerville was arrested, tried, and beheaded; and among the witnesses who appeared against himwas his friend Barere. 

The account which Barere has given of these transactions is studiouslyconfused and grossly dishonest. We think, however, that we can discern, through much falsehood and much artful obscurity, some truths which helabours to conceal. It is clear to us that the government suspected himof what the Italians call a double treason. It was natural that sucha suspicion should attach to him. He had, in times not very remote, zealously preached the Jacobin doctrine, that he who smites a tyrantdeserves higher praise than he who saves a citizen. Was it possiblethat the member of the Committee of Public Safety, the king-killer, thequeen-killer, could in earnest mean to deliver his old confederates, hisbosom friends, to the executioner, solely because they had planned anact which, if there were any truth in his own Carmagnoles, was in thehighest degree virtuous and glorious? Was it not more probable that hewas really concerned in the plot, and that the information which he gavewas merely intended to lull or to mislead the police? Accordingly, spies were set on the spy. He was ordered to quit Paris, and not to comewithin twenty leagues till he received further orders. Nay, he ran nosmall risk of being sent, with some of his old friends, to Madagascar. 

He made his peace, however, with the government so far, that he was notonly permitted, during some years, to live unmolested, but was employedin the lowest sort of political drudgery. In the summer of 1803, whilehe was preparing to visit the south of France, he received a letterwhich deserves to be inserted. It was from Duroc, who is well known tohave enjoyed a large share of Napoleon's confidence and favour. 

"The First Consul, having been informed that Citizen Barere is about toset out for the country, desires that he will stay at Paris. 

"Citizen Barere will every week draw up a report on the state ofpublic opinion on the proceedings of the government, and generally oneverything which, in his judgment, it will be interesting to the FirstConsul to learn. 

"He may write with perfect freedom. 

"He will deliver his reports under seal into General Duroc's own hand, and General Duroc will deliver them to the First Consul. But it isabsolutely necessary that nobody should suspect that this species ofcommunication takes place; and, should any such suspicion get abroad, the First Consul will cease to receive the reports of Citizen Barere. 

"It will also be proper that Citizen Barere should frequently insert inthe journals articles tending to animate the public mind, particularlyagainst the English. "

During some years Barere continued to discharge the functionsassigned to him by his master. Secret reports, filled with the talkof coffee-houses, were carried by him every week to the Tuileries. Hisfriends assure us that he took especial pains to do all the harm in hispower to the returned emigrants. It was not his fault if Napoleon wasnot apprised of every murmur and every sarcasm which old marquesses whohad lost their estates, and old clergymen who had lost their benefices, uttered against the imperial system. M. Hippolyte Carnot, we grieve tosay, is so much blinded by party spirit that he seems to reckon thisdirty wickedness among his hero's titles to public esteem. 

Barere was, at the same time, an indefatigable journalist andpamphleteer. He set up a paper directed against England, and called the"Memorial Antibritannique". He planned a work entitled, "France madegreat and illustrious by Napoleon. " When the Imperial government wasestablished, the old regicide made himself conspicuous even among thecrowd of flatterers by the peculiar fulsomeness of his adulation. He translated into French a contemptible volume of Italian verses, entitled, "The Poetic Crown, composed on the glorious accession ofNapoleon the First, by the Shepherds of Arcadia. " He commenced a newseries of Carmagnoles very different from those which had charmedthe Mountain. The title of Emperor of the French, he said, was mean;Napoleon ought to be Emperor of Europe. King of Italy was too humble anappellation; Napoleon's style ought to be King of Kings. 

But Barere laboured to small purpose in both his vocations. Neither asa writer nor as a spy was he of much use. He complains bitterly thathis paper did not sell. While the "Journal des Debats", then flourishingunder the able management of Geoffroy, had a circulation of at leasttwenty thousand copies, the "Memorial Antibritannique" never, in itsmost prosperous times, had more than fifteen hundred subscribers; andthese subscribers were, with scarcely an exception, persons residing farfrom Paris, probably Gascons, among whom the name of Barere had not yetlost its influence. 

A writer who cannot find readers generally attributes the public neglectto any cause rather than to the true one; and Barere was no exception tothe general rule. His old hatred to Paris revived in all its fury. That city, he says, has no sympathy with France. No Parisian cares tosubscribe to a journal which dwells on the real wants and interests ofthe country. To a Parisian nothing is so ridiculous as patriotism. Thehigher classes of the capital have always been devoted to England. A corporal from London is better received among them than a Frenchgeneral. A journal, therefore, which attacks England has no chance oftheir support. 

A much better explanation of the failure of the "Memorial" was givenby Bonaparte at St Helena. "Barere, " said he to Barry O'Meara, "hadthe reputation of being a man of talent: but I did not find him so. I employed him to write; but he did not display ability. He used manyflowers of rhetoric, but no solid argument; nothing but coglioneriewrapped up in high-sounding language. "

The truth is that, though Barere was a man of quick parts, and could dowith ease what he could do at all, he had never been a good writer. Inthe day of his power he had been in the habit of haranguing an excitableaudience on exciting topics. The faults of his style passed uncensured;for it was a time of literary as well as of civil lawlessness, and apatriot was licensed to violate the ordinary rules of composition aswell as the ordinary rules of jurisprudence and of social morality. Butthere had now been a literary as well as a civil reaction. As there wasagain a throne and a court, a magistracy, a chivalry, and a hierarchy, so was there a revival of classical taste. Honour was again paid tothe prose of Pascal and Massillon, and to the verse of Racine andLa Fontaine. The oratory which had delighted the galleries of theConvention was not only as much out of date as the language ofVillehardouin and Joinville, but was associated in the public mindwith images of horror. All the peculiarities of the Anacreon of theguillotine, his words unknown to the Dictionary of the Academy, hisconceits and his jokes, his Gascon idioms and his Gascon hyperboles, hadbecome as odious as the cant of the Puritans was in England after theRestoration. 

Bonaparte, who had never loved the men of the Reign of Terror, had nowceased to fear them. He was all-powerful and at the height of glory;they were weak and universally abhorred. He was a sovereign; and itis probable that he already meditated a matrimonial alliance withsovereigns. He was naturally unwilling, in his new position, to holdany intercourse with the worst class of Jacobins. Had Barere's literaryassistance been important to the government, personal aversion mighthave yielded to considerations of policy; but there was no motive forkeeping terms with a worthless man who had also proved a worthlesswriter. Bonaparte, therefore, gave loose to his feelings. Barere was notgently dropped, not sent into an honourable retirement, but spurnedand scourged away like a troublesome dog. He had been in the habit ofsending six copies of his journal on fine paper daily to the Tuileries. Instead of receiving the thanks and praises which he expected, he wasdrily told that the great man had ordered five copies to be sent back. Still he toiled on; still he cherished a hope that at last Napoleonwould relent, and that at last some share in the honours of the statewould reward so much assiduity and so much obsequiousness. He wasbitterly undeceived. Under the Imperial constitution the electoralcolleges of the departments did not possess the right of choosingsenators or deputies, but merely that of presenting candidates. Fromamong these candidates the emperor named members of the senate, and thesenate named members of the legislative body. The inhabitants of theUpper Pyrenees were still strangely partial to Barere. In the year 1805, they were disposed to present him as a candidate for the senate. On thisNapoleon expressed the highest displeasure; and the president of theelectoral college was directed to tell the voters, in plain terms, thatsuch a choice would be disgraceful to the department. All thought ofnaming Barere a candidate for the senate was consequently dropped. But the people of Argeles ventured to name him a candidate for thelegislative body. That body was altogether destitute of weight anddignity; it was not permitted to debate; its only function was to votein silence for whatever the government proposed. It is not easy tounderstand how any man who had sat in free and powerful deliberativeassemblies could condescend to bear a part in such a mummery. Barere, however, was desirous of a place even in this mock legislature; and aplace even in this mock legislature was refused to him. In the wholesenate he had not a single vote. 

Such treatment was sufficient, it might have been thought, to move themost abject of mankind to resentment. Still, however, Barere cringed andfawned on. His letters came weekly to the Tuileries till the year1807. At length, while he was actually writing the two hundred andtwenty-third of the series, a note was put into his hands. It was fromDuroc, and was much more perspicuous than polite. Barere was requestedto send no more of his Reports to the palace, as the Emperor was toobusy to read them. 

Contempt, says the Indian proverb, pierces even the shell of thetortoise; and the contempt of the Court was felt to the quick even bythe callous heart of Barere. He had humbled himself to the dust; and hehad humbled himself in vain. Having been eminent among the rulers ofa great and victorious state, he had stooped to serve a master in thevilest capacities; and he had been told that, even in those capacities, he was not worthy of the pittance which had been disdainfully flung tohim. He was now degraded below the level even of the hirelings whom thegovernment employed in the most infamous offices. He stood idle inthe market-place, not because he thought any office too infamous, butbecause none would hire him. 

Yet he had reason to think himself fortunate; for, had all thatis avowed in these Memoirs been known, he would have received verydifferent tokens of the Imperial displeasure. We learn from himselfthat, while publishing daily columns of flattery on Bonaparte, and whilecarrying weekly budgets of calumny to the Tuileries, he was in closeconnection with the agents whom the Emperor Alexander, then by no meansfavourably disposed towards France, employed to watch all that passed atParis; was permitted to read their secret despatches; was consulted bythem as to the temper of the public mind and the character of Napoleon;and did his best to persuade them that the government was in a totteringcondition, and that the new sovereign was not, as the world supposed, a great statesman and soldier. Next, Barere, still the flatterer andtalebearer of the Imperial Court, connected himself in the same mannerwith the Spanish envoy. He owns that with that envoy he had relationswhich he took the greatest pains to conceal from his own government;that they met twice a day; and that their conversation chiefly turnedon the vices of Napoleon; on his designs against Spain, and on the bestmode of rendering those designs abortive. In truth, Barere's basenesswas unfathomable. In the lowest deeps of shame he found out lower deeps. It is bad to be a sycophant; it is bad to be a spy. But even amongsycophants and spies there are degrees of meanness. The vilest sycophantis he who privily slanders the master on whom he fawns; and the vilestspy is he who serves foreigners against the government of his nativeland. 

From 1807 to 1814 Barere lived in obscurity, railing as bitterly as hiscraven cowardice would permit against the Imperial administration, and coming sometimes unpleasantly across the police. When the Bourbonsreturned, he, as might have been expected, became a royalist, andwrote a pamphlet setting forth the horrors of the system from which theRestoration had delivered France, and magnifying the wisdom and goodnesswhich had dictated the charter. He who had voted for the death of Louis, he who had moved the decree for the trial of Marie Antoinette, he whosehatred of monarchy had led him to make war even upon the sepulchres ofancient monarchs, assures us, with great complacency, that "in this workmonarchical principles and attachment to the House of Bourbon are noblyexpressed. " By this apostasy he got nothing, not even any additionalinfamy; for his character was already too black to be blackened. 

During the hundred days he again emerged for a very short time intopublic life; he was chosen by his native district a member of theChamber of Representatives. But, though that assembly was composed ina great measure of men who regarded the excesses of the Jacobins withindulgence, he found himself an object of general aversion. When thePresident first informed the Chamber that M. Barere requested a hearing, a deep and indignant murmur ran round the benches. After the battle ofWaterloo, Barere proposed that the Chamber should save France from thevictorious enemy, by putting forth a proclamation about the pass ofThermopylae and the Lacedaemonian custom of wearing flowers in times ofextreme danger. Whether this composition, if it had then appeared, wouldhave stopped the English and Prussian armies, is a question respectingwhich we are left to conjecture. The Chamber refused to adopt this lastof the Carmagnoles. 

The Emperor had abdicated. The Bourbons returned. The Chamber ofRepresentatives, after burlesquing during a few weeks the proceedingsof the National Convention, retired with the well-earned character ofhaving been the silliest political assembly that had met in France. Those dreaming pedants and praters never for a moment comprehendedtheir position. They could never understand that Europe must be eitherconciliated or vanquished; that Europe could be conciliated only bythe restoration of Louis, and vanquished only by means of a dictatorialpower entrusted to Napoleon. They would not hear of Louis; yet theywould not hear of the only measures which could keep him out. Theyincurred the enmity of all foreign powers by putting Napoleon at theirhead; yet they shackled him, thwarted him, quarrelled with him aboutevery trifle, abandoned him on the first reverse. They then opposeddeclamations and disquisitions to eight hundred thousand bayonets;played at making a constitution for their country, when it depended onthe indulgence of the victor whether they should have a country; andwere at last interrupted, in the midst of their babble about the rightsof man and the sovereignty of the people, by the soldiers of Wellingtonand Blucher. 

A new Chamber of Deputies was elected, so bitterly hostile to theRevolution that there was no small risk of a new Reign of Terror. Itis just, however, to say that the king, his ministers, and his alliesexerted themselves to restrain the violence of the fanatical royalists, and that the punishments inflicted, though in our opinion unjustifiable, were few and lenient when compared with those which were demanded by M. De Labourdonnaye and M. Hyde de Neuville. We have always heard, and areinclined to believe, that the government was not disposed to treateven the regicides with severity. But on this point the feeling of theChamber of Deputies was so strong that it was thought necessary to makesome concession. It was enacted, therefore, that whoever, having votedin January 1793 for the death of Louis the Sixteenth, had in any mannergiven in an adhesion to the government of Bonaparte during the hundreddays should be banished for life from France. Barere fell within thisdescription. He had voted for the death of Louis; and he had sat in theChamber of Representatives during the hundred days. 

He accordingly retired to Belgium, and resided there, forgotten by allmankind, till the year 1830. After the revolution of July he was atliberty to return to France; and he fixed his residence in his nativeprovince. But he was soon involved in a succession of lawsuits with hisnearest relations--"three fatal sisters and an ungrateful brother, " touse his own words. Who was in the right is a question about which wehave no means of judging, and certainly shall not take Barere's word. The Courts appear to have decided some points in his favour and someagainst him. The natural inference is, that there were faults on allsides. The result of this litigation was that the old man was reduced toextreme poverty, and was forced to sell his paternal house. 

As far as we can judge from the few facts which remain to be mentioned, Barere continued Barere to the last. After his exile he turned Jacobinagain, and, when he came back to France, joined the party of theextreme left in railing at Louis Philippe, and at all Louis Philippe'sministers. M. Casimir Perier, M. De Broglie, M. Guizot, and M. Thiers, in particular, are honoured with his abuse; and the King himself is heldup to execration as a hypocritical tyrant. Nevertheless, Barere had noscruple about accepting a charitable donation of a thousand francs ayear from the privy purse of the sovereign whom he hated and reviled. This pension, together with some small sums occasionally doled outto him by the department of the Interior, on the ground that he wasa distressed man of letters, and by the department of Justice, on theground that he had formerly held a high judicial office, saved him fromthe necessity of begging his bread. Having survived all his colleaguesof the renowned Committee of Public Safety, and almost all hiscolleagues of the Convention, he died in January 1841. He had attainedhis eighty-sixth year. 

We have now laid before our readers what we believe to be a just accountof this man's life. Can it be necessary for us to add anything for thepurpose of assisting their judgment of his character? If we were writingabout any of his colleagues in the Committee of Public Safety, aboutCarnot, about Robespierre, or Saint Just, nay, even about Couthon, Collot, or Billaud, we might feel it necessary to go into a fullexamination of the arguments which have been employed to vindicate orto excuse the system of Terror. We could, we think, show that Francewas saved from her foreign enemies, not by the system of Terror, but inspite of it; and that the perils which were made the plea of the violentpolicy of the Mountain were to a great extent created by that verypolicy. We could, we think, also show that the evils produced bythe Jacobin administration did not terminate when it fell; that itbequeathed a long series of calamities to France and to Europe; thatpublic opinion, which had during two generations been constantlybecoming more and more favourable to civil and religious freedom, underwent, during the days of Terror, a change of which the traces arestill to be distinctly perceived. It was natural that there shouldbe such a change, when men saw that those who called themselves thechampions of popular rights had compressed into the space of twelvemonths more crimes than the Kings of France, Merovingian, Carlovingian, and Capetian, had perpetrated in twelve centuries. Freedom was regardedas a great delusion. Men were willing to submit to the government ofhereditary princes, of fortunate soldiers, of nobles, of priests; toany government but that of philosophers and philanthropists. Hence theimperial despotism, with its enslaved press and its silent tribune, its dungeons stronger than the old Bastile, and its tribunals moreobsequious than the old parliaments. Hence the restoration of theBourbons and of the Jesuits, the Chamber of 1815 with its categories ofproscription, the revival of the feudal spirit, the encroachments ofthe clergy, the persecution of the Protestants, the appearance of a newbreed of De Montforts and Dominics in the full light of the nineteenthcentury. Hence the admission of France into the Holy Alliance, and thewar waged by the old soldiers of the tricolor against the liberties ofSpain. Hence, too, the apprehensions with which, even at the presentday, the most temperate plans for widening the narrow basis ofthe French representation are regarded by those who are especiallyinterested in the security of property and maintenance of order. Halfa century has not sufficed to obliterate the stain which one year ofdepravity and madness has left on the noblest of causes. 

Nothing is more ridiculous than the manner in which writers like M. Hippolyte Carnot defend or excuse the Jacobin administration, whilethey declaim against the reaction which followed. That the reaction hasproduced and is still producing much evil, is perfectly true. But whatproduced the reaction? The spring flies up with a force proportioned tothat with which it has been pressed down. The pendulum which is drawnfar in one direction swings as far in the other. The joyous madness ofintoxication in the evening is followed by languor and nausea on themorrow. And so, in politics, it is the sure law that every excess shallgenerate its opposite; nor does he deserve the name of a statesmanwho strikes a great blow without fully calculating the effect of therebound. But such calculation was infinitely beyond the reach of theauthors of the Reign of Terror. Violence, and more violence, blood, and more blood, made up their whole policy. In a few months these poorcreatures succeeded in bringing about a reaction, of which none of themsaw, and of which none of us may see the close; and, having brought itabout, they marvelled at it; they bewailed it; they execrated it; theyascribed it to everything but the real cause--their own immortality andtheir own profound incapacity for the conduct of great affairs. 

These, however, are considerations to which, on the present occasion, itis hardly necessary for us to advert; for, be the defence which has beenset up for the Jacobin policy good or bad, it is a defence which cannotavail Barere. From his own life, from his own pen, from his own mouth, we can prove that the part which he took in the work of blood is to beattributed, not even to sincere fanaticism, not even to misdirectedand ill-regulated patriotism, but either to cowardice, or to delight inhuman misery. Will it be pretended that it was from public spirit thathe murdered the Girondists? In these very Memoirs he tells us that healways regarded their death as the greatest calamity that could befallFrance. Will it be pretended that it was from public spirit that heraved for the head of the Austrian woman? In these very Memoirs he tellsus that the time spent in attacking her was ill spent, and ought to havebeen employed in concerting measures of national defence. Will it bepretended that he was induced by sincere and earnest abhorrence ofkingly government to butcher the living and to outrage the dead; he whoinvited Napoleon to take the title of King of Kings, he who assures usthat after the Restoration he expressed in noble language his attachmentto monarchy, and to the house of Bourbon? Had he been less mean, something might have been said in extenuation of his cruelty. Had hebeen less cruel, something might have been said in extenuation of hismeanness. But for him, regicide and court-spy, for him who patronisedLebon and betrayed Demerville, for him who wantoned alternately ingasconades of Jacobinism and gasconades of servility, what excuse hasthe largest charity to offer?

We cannot conclude without saying something about two parts of hischaracter, which his biographer appears to consider as deserving ofhigh admiration. Barere, it is admitted, was somewhat fickle; but in twothings he was consistent, in his love of Christianity, and in his hatredto England. If this were so, we must say that England is much morebeholden to him than Christianity. 

It is possible that our inclinations may bias our judgment; but we thinkthat we do not flatter ourselves when we say that Barere's aversion toour country was a sentiment as deep and constant as his mind wascapable of entertaining. The value of this compliment is indeed somewhatdiminished by the circumstance that he knew very little about us. His ignorance of our institutions, manners, and history is the lessexcusable, because, according to his own account, he consorted much, during the peace of Amiens, with Englishmen of note, such as thateminent nobleman Lord Greaten, and that not less eminent philosopherMr Mackensie Coefhis. In spite, however, of his connection with thesewell-known ornaments of our country, he was so ill-informed about us asto fancy that our government was always laying plans to torment him. If he was hooted at Saintes, probably by people whose relations he hadmurdered, it was because the cabinet of St James's had hired the mob. Ifnobody would read his bad books it was because the cabinet of St James'shad secured the Reviewers. His accounts of Mr Fox, of Mr Pitt, of theDuke of Wellington, of Mr Canning, swarm with blunders surpassing eventhe ordinary blunders committed by Frenchmen who write about England. MrFox and Mr Pitt, he tells us, were ministers in two different reigns. Mr Pitt's sinking fund was instituted in order to enable England to paysubsidies to the powers allied against the French republic. The Dukeof Wellington's house in Hyde Park was built by the nation, which twicevoted the sum of 200, 000 pounds for the purpose. This, however, isexclusive of the cost of the frescoes, which were also paid for out ofthe public purse. Mr Canning was the first Englishman whose deathEurope had reason to lament; for the death of Lord Ward, a relation, wepresume, of Lord Greaten and Mr Coefhis, had been an immense benefit tomankind. 

Ignorant, however, as Barere was, he knew enough of us to hate us; andwe persuade ourselves that, had he known us better, he would have hatedus more. The nation which has combined, beyond all example and all hope, the blessings of liberty with those of order, might well be an objectof aversion to one who had been false alike to the cause of order andto the cause of liberty. We have had amongst us intemperate zeal forpopular rights; we have had amongst us also the intemperance of loyalty. But we have never been shocked by such a spectacle as the Barereof 1794, or as the Barere of 1804. Compared with him, our fiercestdemagogues have been gentle; compared with him, our meanest courtiershave been manly. Mix together Thistlewood and Bubb Doddington; and youare still far from having Barere. The antipathy between him and us issuch, that neither for the crimes of his earlier nor for those of hislater life does our language, rich as it is, furnish us with adequatenames. We have found it difficult to relate his history without havingperpetual recourse to the French vocabulary of horror, and to the Frenchvocabulary of baseness. It is not easy to give a notion of his conductin the Convention, without using those emphatic terms, guillotinade, noyade, fusillade, mitraillade. It is not easy to give a notion of hisconduct under the Consulate and the Empire without borrowing such wordsas mouchard and mouton. 

We therefore like his invectives against us much better thananything else that he has written; and dwell on them, not merely withcomplacency, but with a feeling akin to gratitude. It was but littlethat he could do to promote the honour of our country; but that littlehe did strenuously and constantly. Renegade, traitor, slave, coward, liar, slanderer, murderer, hack writer, police-spy--the one smallservice which he could render to England was to hate her: and such as hewas may all who hate her be!

We cannot say that we contemplate with equal satisfaction that ferventand constant zeal for religion which, according to M. Hippolyte Carnot, distinguished Barere; for, as we think that whatever brings dishonour onreligion is a serious evil, we had, we own, indulged a hope that Barerewas an atheist. We now learn, however, that he was at no time even asceptic, that he adhered to his faith through the whole Revolution, andthat he has left several manuscript works on divinity. One of these isa pious treatise, entitled "Of Christianity, and of its Influence. "Another consists of meditations on the Psalms, which will doubtlessgreatly console and edify the Church. 

This makes the character complete. Whatsoever things are false, whatsoever things are dishonest, whatsoever things are unjust, whatsoever things are impure, whatsoever things are hateful, whatsoeverthings are of evil report, if there be any vice, and if there be anyinfamy, all these things, we knew, were blended in Barere. But one thingwas still wanting; and that M. Hippolyte Carnot has supplied. When tosuch an assemblage of qualities a high profession of piety is added, the effect becomes overpowering. We sink under the contemplation of suchexquisite and manifold perfection; and feel, with deep humility, howpresumptuous it was in us to think of composing the legend of thisbeatified athlete of the faith, St Bertrand of the Carmagnoles. 

Something more we had to say about him. But let him go. We did not seekhim out, and will not keep him longer. If those who call themselves hisfriends had not forced him on our notice we should never have vouchsafedto him more than a passing word of scorn and abhorrence, such as wemight fling at his brethren, Hebert and Fouquier Tinville, and Carrierand Lebon. We have no pleasure in seeing human nature thus degraded. Weturn with disgust from the filthy and spiteful Yahoos of the fiction;and the filthiest and most spiteful Yahoo of the fiction was a noblecreature when compared with the Barere of history. But what is nopleasure M. Hippolyte Carnot has made a duty. It is no light thingthat a man in high and honourable public trust, a man who, from hisconnections and position, may not unnaturally be supposed to speak thesentiments of a large class of his countrymen, should come forward todemand approbation for a life black with every sort of wickedness, andunredeemed by a single virtue. This M. Hippolyte Carnot has done. Byattempting to enshrine this Jacobin carrion, he has forced us to gibbetit; and we venture to say that, from the eminence of infamy on which wehave placed it, he will not easily take it down.