ment, death; it knows no law but force to govern mankind. Regard its external policy; it regards neither the sanction of treaties nor the rights of neutrals, nor the inviolability of their territories, nor the conditions of their capitulations: its diplomacy is nothing else but war; that is to say, forceits last resource in all emergencies. In its internal government, it has recourse to no lengthened discussion, to no delays, no slow deliberations; caprice, anger, murder, cut short all questions, without permitting the other side to be heard. In a word, in that system, force thinks, deliberates, wishes, and executes. It rejects all the authority of time and the lessons of experience; the past it destroys, the future it devours. It must invade everything, overcome everything, in a single day. Marching at the head of menacing masses, it compels all wishes, all resistance, all genius, all grandeur, all virtue, to bend before those terrible waves, where there is nothing enlightened which is not perverted, nor worthy which is not buried in obscurity. What it calls liberty consists in the power of dictating its caprice to the rest of mankind; to the judge on the seat of justice, to the citizen at his fireside, to the legislator in his curule chair, to the king on his throne. Thus it advances, overturning, destroying. But do not speak to it of building; that is beyond its power. It is the monster of Asia, which can extinguish but not produce existence." -Pp. 230, 231.

At the moment that we are translating this terrible picture, meetings of the masses of mankind have been convened, by the reforming agents, in every part of the country, where by possibility they could be got together to control and overturn the decisions of Parliament. Fifty, sixty, and seventy thousand men, are stated to have been assembled at Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Edinburgh their numbers are grossly exaggerated; disorders wilfully ascribed to them menacing language falsely put into their mouth, in order to intimidate the more sober and virtuous class of citizens. The brickbat-and-bludgeon system is invoked to cover the freedom of the next, as it did of the last general election, and obtain that triumph from the force of brutal violence, which it despairs of effecting by the sober influence of reason or justice. Who is so blind as not to see in this ostentatious parade of numbers, as opposed to knowledge; in this appeal to violence, in default of argument; in this recourse to the force of masses, to overcome the energy of patriotism,—the same revolutionary spirit which Salvandy has so well described as forming the scourge of modern France, and which never yet became predominant in a country without involving high and low in one promiscuous ruin?

"England," says the same eloquent writer, "has two edifices standing near to each other: in the one, assemble from generation to generation, to defend the ancient liberties of their country, all that the three kingdoms can assemble that is illustrious or respectable: it is the chapel of St Stephen's:

There have combated Pitt and Fox: there we have seen Brougham, Peel, and Canning, engaged in those noble strifes which elevate the dignity of human nature, and the very sight of which is enough to attach the mind to freedom for the rest of its life. At a few paces distant you find another arena, other combats, other champions: physical force contending with its like man struggling with his fellow-creature for a miserable prize, and exerting no ray of intelligence, but to plant his blows with more accuracy in the body of his antagonist. From that spectacle to the glorious one exhibited in Parliament, the distance is not greater than from revolutionary liberty to constitutional freedom."-P. 233.

To what does the atrocious system of popular intimidation necessarily lead, but to such a species of revolutionary liberty; in other words, to the unrestrained tyranny of the mob, over all that is dignified, or virtuous, or praiseworthy, in society?

"In vain," continues our author, "the movement party protest against such a result, and strive to support their opinions by the strange paradox, that the anarchy towards which all their efforts are urging us, will this time be gentle, pacific, beneficent: that it will bring back the days of legitimacy, and bring them back by flowery paths. This brilliant colouring to the horrors of anarchy is one of the most deplorable productions of the spirit of party. For my part, I see it in colours of blood; and that not merely from historic recollection, but from the nature of things. Doubtless we will not see the Reign of Terror under the same aspect: we will not see a Committee of Public Safety holding France enchained with a hand of iron: we will not see that infamous centralisation of power: but what we will see is a domiciliary terror, more rapid and more atrocious: more destructive than on the first occasion, because it will be more nearly allied to the passion for gain and plunder. What will ultimately come of it, God only knows; but this we may well affirm, that when the revolutionary party shall become master of France, it will slay and spoil as it has slain and spoiled; that it will decimate the higher classes as it has decimated them. I assert, that those of the present leaders of the party who shall oppose themselves to this horrible result, and assuredly the greater number will do so, will be crushed under the wheels of the chariot which they have so insanely put in motion. I maintain that this is a principle of its existence-a law of nature; in fine, the means destined by Providence for its extinction. Existing solely on the support of the masses of mankind, having no support but in their aid, it can admit of no genius to rule its destinies but their genius. Thenceforward it is condemned, for its existence and its power, to model itself on the multitude; to live and reign according to its dictation. And the multitude, to use the nervous words of Odillon Barrot, is characterised by barbarity throughout all the earth.'

"Thence it is that every state, which has once given admission to democratic doctrines, totters under the draught, and falls, if it is not speedily disgorged. Thence it is that every society which has received, which has become intoxicated with them, abjures the force of reason, devotes itself to the convulsions of anarchy, and bids at once a long adieu to civilisation and to freedom. For the revolutionary party, while they are incessantly speaking of ameliorations and of perfection, are a thousand times more adverse to the progress of the social order, and of the human mind, than the party of the ancient régime, which at least had its principal seat in the higher region of society; a region cultivated, fruitful in intelligence, and where the progress of improvement, however suspended for a time by the spirit of party,

cannot fail speedily to regain its course. But our Revolutionists do more: they bring us back to the barbarous ages, and do so at one bound. All their policy may be reduced to two points: within, Revolution; without, War. Everywhere it is the same-an appeal to the law of the strongest ; a return to the ages of barbarism."-P. 248.

Salvandy paints the classes whose incessant agitation is producing these disastrous effects. They are not peculiar to France, but will be found in equal strength on this side of the Channel.

"Would you know who are the men, and what are the passions, which thus nourish the flame of revolution; which stain with blood, or shake with terror, the world; which sadden the people, extinguish industry, disturb repose, and suspend the progress of nations? Behold that crowd of young men, fierce republicans, barristers without briefs, physicians without patients, who make a revolution to fill up their vacant hours,—ambitious equally to have their names inscribed in the roll of indictments for the courts of assizes, as in the records of fame. And it is for such ambition that blood has flowed in Poland, Italy, and Lyons! The rivalry of kings never occasioned more disasters."-P. 270.

One of the most interesting parts of this valuable work is the clear and luminous account which the author gives of the practical changes in the constitution, ideas, and morals of France by the late Revolution. It is evident that France has irrecoverably plunged into the revolutionary stream, and that it will swallow up its liberties, its morals, its existence.

"The constitution of the National Guard," says our author, "is monstrous from beginning to end. There has sprung from it hitherto more good than evil, because the spirit of the people is still better than the institutions which the revolutionary party have given them; and that they have not hitherto used the arms so insanely given them, without any consideration. But this cannot continue; the election of officers by the privates is subversive of all the principles of government. The right of election has been given to them without reserve, in direct violation of the Charter on the precedent of 1791, and in conformity to the wishes of M. Lafayette.

"In this National Guard, this first of political powers, since the maintenance of the Charter is directly intrusted to it,-in that power, the most democratic that ever existed upon earth, since it consists of six millions of citizens, equal among each other, and possessing equally the right of suffrage, which consists in the possession of a bayonet and ball-cartridges, we have not established for any ranks any condition, either of election or of eligibility. It is almost miraculous, that the anarchists have not more generally succeeded in seizing that terrible arm. They have done so, however, in many places. Thence has come that scandal, that terrible calamity of the National Guards taking part in the insurrections, and marching in the ranks of anarchy with drums beating and colours flying. The sword is now our only refuge, and the sword is turned against us! While I am yet writing these convictions in the silence of meditation and grief, a voice stronger than mine proclaims them in accents of thunder. Lyons has shown them written in blood. It is the handwriting on the wall which appeared to Belshazzar."-P. 391.

Of the changes in the electoral body, and the power of Parliament, effected since the Revolution of July, he gives the following account :

"The power of Parliament has been strengthened by all that the royal authority has lost. It has gained in addition the power of proposing laws in either Chamber. The elective power, above all, has been immensely extended; for, of the two Chambers, that which was esteemed the most durable, and was intended to give stability to our institutions, has been so cruelly mutilated by the exclusions following the Revolution of July, and the subsequent creations to serve a particular purpose, that it is no longer of any weight in the state. The whole powers of government have centred in the Chamber of Deputies."

The right of election has been extended to 300,000 Frenchmen; the great electoral colleges have been abolished; the qualification for eligibility has been lowered one half as the qualification for electing; and the farmers have been substituted for the great proprietors in the power of a double vote. The power of regulating the affairs of departments has been devolved to 800,000 citizens; that of regulating the communes to 2,500,000. The power of arms has been surrendered to all; and the power of electing its leaders given to the whole armed force without distinction.

"In this way property is entirely excluded from all influence in the election of magistrates; it has but one privilege left, that of bearing the largest part of the burdens, and every species of outrage, vexation, and abuse. As a natural consequence, the communes have been ill administered, and nothing but the worst passions regulate the election of their officers. The municipal councils are composed of infinitely worse members than they were before the portentous addition made to the number of their electors. To secure the triumph of having a bad mayor, a mayor suited to their base and ignorant jealousies, they are constrained to elect bad magistrates. Abyssus abyssum vocat.

"In the political class of electors, the effect of the democratic changes has been still worse. The power of mobs has become irresistible. The electoral body, which for fifteen years has struggled for the liberties of France, has been dispossessed by a body possessing less independence, less intelligence, which understands less the duties to which it is called. Everywhere the respectable classes, sure of being outroted, have stayed away from the elections. In the department in which I write, a hundred voices have carried the election, because 300 respectable electors have not made their appearance. In all parts of the kingdom, the same melancholy spectacle presents itself. The law has made a class arbiters of the affairs of the kingdom, which has the good sense to perceive its utter unfitness for the task, or its inability to contend with the furious torrent with which it is surrounded; and the consequence everywhere has been, that intrigue, and every unworthy passion, govern the elections, and a set of miserable low intriguers rule France with a rod of iron. In the state, the department, the communes, the National Guard, the prospect is the same. The same principle governs the organisation, or rather disorganisation throughout the whole of society. Universally it is the lower part of the electoral

body, the most numerous, the most reckless, and the most compact, which casts the balance; in short, it is the tail which governs the head. There is the profound grievance which endangers all our liberties. On such conditions, no social union is possible among men.

"Recently our electors have made a discovery, which fixes in these inferior regions, not merely the power of election, but the whole political authority in the state; it is the practice of exacting from their representatives, before they are elected, pledges as to every measure of importance which is to come before them. By that single expedient, the representative system, with all its guarantees and blessings, has crumbled into dust. Its fundamental principle is, that the three great powers form the head of the state; that all three discuss, deliberate, decide, with equal freedom, on the affairs of the state. The guarantee of this freedom consists in the composition of these powers, the slow method of their procedure, the length of previous debates, and the control of each branch of the legislature by the others. But the exacting of pledges from Members of Parliament destroys all this. Deliberation and choice are placed at the very bottom of the political ladder, and there alone. What do I say? Deliberation! the thing is unknown even there. A hare-brained student seizes at the gate of a city a peasant, asks him if he is desirous to see feudality with all its seignorial rights re-established, puts into his hands a name to vote for, which will preserve him from all these calamities, and, having thus sent him totally deluded into the election hall, returns to his companions, and laughs with them at having thus secured a vote for the abolition of the peerage.

"As little is the inclination of the electors consulted in their preliminary resolutions. It is in the wine-shops, amidst the fumes of intoxication, that the greatest questions are decided; without hearing the other side, without any knowledge on the subject; without the smallest information as to the matter on which an irrevocable decision is thus taken. This is what is called the liberty of democracy; a brutal, ignorant, reckless liberty, which cuts short all discussion, and decides every question without knowledge, without discussion, without examination, from the mere force of passion."

Of the present state of the French press, we have the following emphatic account. Democracy, it will be seen, produces every where the same effects.

"At the spectacle of the press of France, I experience the grief of an old soldier, who sees his arms profaned. The press is no longer that sure ally of freedom, which follows, step by step, the depositories of power, but without contesting with them their necessary prerogatives, or striving to sap the foundations of the state. It is an Eumenides, a Bacchante, which brandishes a torch, a hatchet, or a poniard; which insults and strikes without intermission; which applies itself incessantly, in its lucid intervals, to demolish, stone by stone, the whole social edifice; which seems tormented by a devouring fever; which requires to revenge itself for the sufferings of a consuming pride, by the unceasing work of destruction. In other states, it has been found that calumny penetrates into the field of polemical contest. But France has gone a step farther; it possesses whole workshops of calumny. Insult has its seats of manufacture. We have numerous journals, which live by attacking every reputation, every talent, every species of superiority. It is an artillery incessantly directed to level everything which is elevated, or which serves or honours its country. It is no wonder that the observation should be so common, that society is undergoing an incessant degradation. A society in the midst of which a disorder so frightful is daily appearing, without exciting either attention or animadversion, is on