he*, to defend their chief, to maintain his dignity, " and to yield him the glory of all their exploits. The 'chiefs fight for victory; the attendants only for the 'chief.' What extraordinary blockheads have the majority of mankind-in all ages-been!

It is mortifying to see a man, who has fought the battle, faced the enemy in all directions, kept them at bay, and that for years, in heat and in cold, in sickness and in health;-and then to behold others, who have neither fought nor struggled, suffered nor planned; -I say it mortifies one's spirit to see the former pushed aside, and thought little of, their services forgot, and their valour and skill unappreciated; and the latter, because they have been in at the death, as it were, to claim the honour of the victory, and ride in the chariot of triumph. And yet all this is far from being as uncommon as an Aurora Borealis.

CXXIX.

WHO SACRIFICE GREAT INTERESTS TO LITTLE ONES.

Thus

SOME fruits become ripe; and yet never sweeten. Many men sacrifice real interests to passions. Perseus† knew better how to keep his money than his country. He may therefore be said to have resembled a merchant, who loses all in a tempest, rather than cast a part of his cargo into the sea. To lose a part to save the whole is a policy, beyond the capacity of ninety persons out of an hundred. All or-nothing! To be a child, in their estimation, is far better than being

a man.

*De Mor. Germ.

+ Livy.

It was justly argued, a short time since*, in the House of Commons, that the science of politics is essentially experimental; not like the axioms and definitions of the geometer, of intrinsic truth, uninfluenced by time and place ;-but depending on experience, and, therefore, as changing as the circumstances on which all experience is founded. Had our ancestors,' continued the honourable member †, with an extended arm and a glowing eye, had our ancestors been as fearful of change as their sons, those sons would have had little to boast of.' Little indeed can be expected from any legislature, whose bond of union is not the public good, founded on the principles of justice, truth, and sound humanity.

A few days after this debate the House of Commons passed the Reform Bill‡. The tones of the members were very curious. When the Speaker put the question, that the bill do were delivered in a 'snappish tone of discontent;' the ayes' in loud

pass,

the 'noes

volleys of hilarity and joy,' &c.

By this act, the public door was opened ;

-She open'd; but to shut

Excell'd her power.'

In a collection of five thousand persons, the error of preferring small interests to great ones is fatal to three thousand three hundred and thirty. Indeed, speaking by a figure, they are almost as numerous as passenger pigeons in North America. One of the kings of Spain

*March 17, 1832.

Mr. Macaulay, member for Calne.

March 24.

said, I would give up all claims to Gibraltar, if I 'could but possess the Philippine Islands in peace.' Yet, as Lord Stormont observed, some time after, to Mr. Hussey*, If Spain would lay before me the map ' of her empire, to take my choice of an equivalent, I 'should not be able in three weeks to find, in all the 'dominions of Spain, what, in my judgment, would 'balance the cession of Gibraltar.'

In respect to Portugal, has she not, for nearly two centuries, preferred small interests to great, in all things, if we except her adherence to treaties with Great Britain ? She has. She has neglected the growth of wool, the production of oil and bees' wax, and the cultivation of the white mulberry. She has, therefore, been an importing country. She has drained her own villages to people those of her colonies; her colonies are separating from her, and leaving her to the enjoyment of a discontented populace, a poor, insolent, and unprincipled nobility, a despotic government, and a lazy, ignorant, Jesuitical priesthood.

There was never a greater folly, nor scarcely a greater baseness, than that of Charles II.; when, with the assistance of his ministry, significantly styled the Cabal, he, in conjunction with Louis XIV., waged war against the Dutch. It was a war of two kings against civil and religious freedom. But the utmost Charles could gain, was the assistance of the French king against his own subjects, a few towns, and the ruin of a commercial rival :-to transfer that rival's army, fleet,

* Coxe's Mem., Kings of Spain of the House of Bourbon, vol. v. 75.

resources, country, and subsequently the Netherlands, not to himself but to Louis XIV.! Indeed this king, throughout his whole reign, sacrificed great interests not only to small, but even diminutive ones.

Henry VIII. permitted Spain and Portugal to engross the East and West Indies, and neglected even the discoveries of Cabot, in order to establish an improbability on the continent. William III. was unmindful of the internal polity of his kingdom, that he might, the more effectually, watch over the schemes of contending nations. George I. and George II. laid themselves open to the censure of Britain, by entertaining too great a partiality to Hanover; and George III. suffered himself to be divested of part of a fine empire, rather than make concessions, that would have preserved the integrity of the whole. Subsequently to this, instead of insisting upon his ministers operating on a large scale, for great interests, he permitted them to carry his arms against islands in the West Indies, which were gained, not for permanent possession, but merely as equivalents to restore. Hence a lady was much admired for having said to Mr. Pitt, on hearing that one or two islands had surrendered in the West Indies, I protest, Mr. Pitt, if you go on thus, you will soon be master of every island in the world, except two;-England and Ireland.'

In 1276, Wales was united to England; in 1706 Scotland; and in 1801 Ireland. Yet nothing could exceed the discontent of those countries at such beneficial events. In their vanity at losing a phantom, they lost all feeling of benefit. They felt as Hungary

and Bohemia felt, and, I believe, feel still, in regard to Austria.

Most persons supposed, when, in consequence of the victories of the French, and the defection of the tributary states, the German empire was dissolved, and Francis II. exchanged the title of Emperor of Germany for that of Emperor of Austria, that he did so from a mere affection for his hereditary states; and therefore he was accused of sacrificing a great interest to a less : but it requires little political information to know, that, in solid power, he is much greater now than he was then. For it is impossible to forget that Germany was, for many centuries, a prey to the presumption of the popes, to constant disputes arising out of claims relative to possession; and to innumerable rebellions on the part of the tributary states.

Many Florentine statesmen have desired to enlarge their territories; but Florence would derive less real benefit from a part of Milan, than she does from the possession of the busts of the Roman emperors, the group of Laocoon and his sons, two statues of Apollo, the statue by Cleomenes, the Medicean Venus, and the many transcendent specimens of the pictorial art in the palace of the Pitti *.

CXXX.

WHO ARE MARTYRS TO THEIR OWN CONCEPTIONS. ARCHBISHOP LAUD was of this order: a French writer has, therefore, with great point, taken advantage of

* How little some ministers know, in respect to the commercial value of fine specimens of art, may be learnt from Mr. Perceval's answer, when advised to purchase the Orleans Gallery :-' I would not 'give 2007. for them.'