the increased wealth and intelligence of its | and to expose even those which were salutary representatives.

to misapprehension and miscarriage. From Of this fair chance of amelioration, the a scheme of reformation so impetuous, and nation was disappointed, chiefly, we are in- an impatience so puerile, nothing permanent clined to think, by the needless asperity and or judicious could be reasonably expected. injudicious menaces of the popular party. In legislating for their country, they seem to They relied openly upon the strength of their have forgotten that they were operating on a adherents among the populace. If they did living and sentient substance, and not on an not actually encourage them to threats and to inert and passive mass, which they might acts of violence, they availed themselves at model and compound according to their pleasleast of those which were committed, to in-ure or their fancy. Human society, however, timidate and depress their opponents; for it is not like a piece of mechanism which may is indisputably certain, that the unconditional be safely taken to pieces, and put together by compliance of the court with all the demands of the Constituent Assembly, was the result either of actual force, or the dread of its immediate application. This was the inauspicious commencement of the sins and the sufferings of the Revolution. Their progress and termination were natural and necessary. The multitude, once allowed to overawe the old government with threats, soon subjected the new government to the same degradation; and, once permitted to act in arms, came speedily to dictate to those who were assembled to deliberate. As soon as an appeal was made to force, the decision came to be with those by whom force could at all times be commanded. Reason and philosophy were discarded; and mere terror and brute violence, in the various forms of proscriptions, insurrections, massacres, and military execu tions, harassed and distracted the misguided nation, till, by a natural consummation, they fell under the despotic sceptre of a military usurper. These consequences, we conceive, were obvious, and might have been easily forseen. Nearly half a century had elapsed since they were pointed out in those memorable words of the most profound and philosophical of historians. แ By recent, as well as by ancient example, it was become evident, that illegal violence, with whatever pretences it may be covered, and whatever object it may pursue, must inevitably end at last in the arbitrary and despotic government of a single person."

the hands of an ordinary artist. It is the work of Nature, and not of man; and has received, from the hands of its Author, an organization that cannot be destroyed without danger to its existence, and certain properties and powers that cannot be altered or suspended by those who may have been entrusted with its management. By studying those properties, and directing those powers, it may be modified and altered to a very considerable extent. But they must be allowed to develope themselves by their internal energy, and to familiarize themselves with their new channel of exertion. A child cannot be stretched out by engines to the stature of a man; or a man compelled, in a morning, to excel in all the exercises of an athlete. Those into whose hands the destinies of a great nation are committed, should bestow on its reformation at least as much patient observance and as much tender precaution as are displayed by a skilful gardener in his treatment of a sickly plant. He props up the branches that are weak or overloaded, and gradually prunes and reduces those that are too luxuriant: he cuts away what is absolutely rotten and distempered: he stirs the earth about the root, and sprinkles it with water, and waits for the coming spring! He trains the young branches to the right hand or to the left; and leads it, by a gradual and spontaneous progress, to expand or exalt itself, season after season, in the direction which he had previously determined: and thus, in the The second inexcusable blunder, of which course of a few summers, he brings it, withthe Constituent Assembly was guilty, was out injury or compulsion, into that form and one equally obvious, and has been more fre- proportion which could not with safety have quently noticed. It was the extreme rest-been imposed upon it in a shorter time. The lessness and precipitation with which they proceeded to accomplish, in a few weeks, the legislative labours of a century. Their constitution was struck out at a heat; and their measures of reform proposed and adopted like toasts at an election dinner. Within less than six months from the period of their first convocation, they declared the illegality of all the subsisting taxes; they abolished the old constitution of the States-General; they settled the limits of the Royal prerogative, their own inviolability, and the responsibility of ministers. Before they put any one of their projects to the test of experiment, they had adopted such an enormous multitude, as entirely to innovate the condition of the country,

37

reformers of France applied no such gentle solicitations, and would not wait for the effects of any such preparatory measures, or voluntary developments. They forcibly broke its lofty boughs asunder, and endeavoured tr straighten its crooked joints by violence: they tortured it into symmetry in vain, and shed its life-blood on the earth, in the middle of its scattered branches.

The third great danger, against which we think it was the duty of the intelligent and virtuous part of the Deputies to have provided, was that which arose from the sudden transference of power to the hands of men who had previously no natural or individual influence in the community. This was an evil indeed, which arose necessarily, in some degree, from the defects of the old government, and from the novelty of the situation in which

well, held the place, and enjoyed all the form of power that had belonged to their predeces sors: But as they no longer contained those individuals who were able to sway and influence the opinion of the body of the people, they were without respect or authority, and speedily came to be the objects of public derision and contempt.

the country was placed by the convocation | Parliament, after it was purged by the Indeof the States-General; but it was materially pendents, and the assemblies that met under aggravated by the presumption and improvi- that name, during the Protectorate of Cromdence of those enthusiastic legislators, and tended powerfully to produce those disasters by which they were ultimately overwhelmed. No representative legislature, it appears to us, can ever be respectable or secure, unless it contain within itself a great proportion of those who form the natural aristocracy of the country, and are able, as individuals, to influence the conduct and opinions of the greater part of its inhabitants. Unless the power and weight and authority of the assembly, in short, be really made up of the power and weight and authority of the individuals who compose it, the factitious dignity they may derive from their situation can never be of long endurance; and the dangerous power with which they may be invested, will become the subject of scrambling and contention among the factions of the metropolis, and be employed for any purpose but the general good of the community.

As the power and authority of a legislature thus constituted, is perfectly secure and inalienable, on the one hand, so, on the other, the moderation of its proceedings is guaranteed by a consciousness of the basis upon which this authority is founded. Every individual being aware of the extent to which his own influence is likely to reach among his constituents and dependants, is anxious that the mandates of the body shall never pass beyond that limit, within which obedience may be easily secured. He will not hazard the loss of his own power, therefore, by any attempt to enlarge that of the legislature; and feeling, at every step, the weight and resistance of the people, the whole assembly proceeds with a due regard to their opinions and prejudices, and can never do any thing very injurious or very distasteful to the majority.From the very nature of the authority with which they are invested, they are in fact consubstantiated with the people for whom they are to legislate. They do not sit loose upon them, like riders on inferior animals; nor speculate nor project experiments upon their welfare, like operators upon a foreign substance. They are the natural organs, in fact, of a great living body; and are not only warned, by their own feelings, of any injury which they may be tempted to inflict on it, but would become incapable of performing their functions, if they were to proceed far in debilitating the general system.

In England, the House of Commons is made up of the individuals who, by birth, by fortune, or by talents, possess singly the greatest influence over the rest of the people. The most certain and the most permanent influence, is that of rank and of riches; and these are the qualifications, accordingly, which return the greatest number of members. Men submit to be governed by the united will of those, to whose will, as individuals, the greater part of them have been previously accustomed to submit themselves; and an act of parliament is reverenced and obeyed, not because the people are impressed with a constitutional veneration for an institution called a parliament, but because it has been passed by the authority of those who are recognised as their natural superiors, and by whose influence, as individuals, the same measures might have been enforced over the greater part of the kingdom. Scarcely any new power is ac- Such, it appears to us, though delivered quired, therefore, by the combination of those perhaps in too abstract and elementary a form, persons into a legislature: They carry each is the just conception of a free representative their share of influence and authority into the legislature. Neither the English House of senate along with them; and it is by adding Commons, indeed, nor any assembly of any the items of it together, that the influence other nation, ever realized it in all its perfecand authority of the senate itself is made up. tion: But it is in their approximation to such From such a senate, therefore, it is obvious a standard, we conceive, that their excellence that their power can never be wrested, and and utility will be found to consist; and where that it would not even attach to those who the conditions upon which we have insisted might succeed in supplanting them in the are absolutely wanting, the sudden institution legislature, by violence or intrigue; or by any of a representative legislature will only be a other means than those by which they them- step to the most frightful disorders. Where selves had originally secured their nomination. it has grown up in a country in which perIn such a state of representation, in short, the sonal liberty and property are tolerably secure, influence of the representatives is not borrow-it naturally assumes that form which is most ed from their office, but the influence of the favourable to its beneficial influence, and has office is supported by that which is personal a tendency to perpetual improvement, and to to its members; and parliament is chiefly the constant amelioration of the condition of regarded as the great depository of all the the whole society. The difference between authority which formerly existed, in a scat- a free government and a tyrannical one, contered state, among its members. This author- sists entirely in the different proportions of ity, therefore, belonging to the men, and not the people that are influenced by their opinto their places, can neither be lost by them, ions, or subjugated by intimidation or force. if they are forced from their places, nor found In a large society, opinions can only be reby those who may supplant them. The Long united by means of representations; and the

natural representative is the individual whose that has existed in modern times, it is not to example and authority can influence the opin- be wondered at if they forgot the slender ties ions of the greater part of those in whose by which they were bound to their constitubehalf he is delegated. This is the natural ents. The powers to which they had sucaristocracy of a civilized nation; and its legis- ceeded were so infinitely beyond any thing lature is then upon the best possible footing, that they had enjoyed in their individual when it is in the hands of those who answer capacity, that it is not surprising if they never to that description. The whole people are thought of exerting them with the same conthen governed by the laws, exactly as each sideration and caution. Instead of the great clan or district of them would have been by bases of rank and property, which cannot be the patriarchal authority of an elective and transferred by the clamours of the factious, unarmed chieftain; and the lawgivers are not or the caprice of the inconstant, and which only secure of their places while they can serve to ballast and steady the vessel of the maintain their individual influence over the state in all its wanderings and perils, the people, but are withheld from any rash or assembly possessed only the basis of talent injurious measure by the consciousness and or reputation; qualities which depend upon feeling of their dependence on this voluntary opinion and opportunity, and which may be deference and submission. attributed in the same proportion to an inconIf this be at all a just representation of the venient multitude at once. The whole legisconditions upon which the respectability and lature may be considered, therefore, as comsecurity of a representative legislature must posed of adventurers, who had already attained always depend, it will not be difficult to ex- à situation incalculably above their original plain how the experiment miscarried so com- pretensions, and were now tempted to push pletely, in the case of the French Constituent their fortune by every means that held out Assembly. That assembly, which the enthu- the promise of immediate success. They siasm of the public, and the misconduct of had nothing, comparatively speaking, to lose, the privileged orders, soon enabled to engross but their places in that assembly, or the influthe whole power of the country, consisted ence which they possessed within its walls; almost entirely of persons without name or and as the authority of the assembly itself individual influence; who owed the whole of depended altogether upon the popularity of their consequence to the situation to which its measures, and not upon the intrinsic authey had been elevated, and were not able, thority of its members, so it was only to be as individuals, to have influenced the opinions maintained by a succession of brilliant and of one-fiftieth part of their countrymen.-imposing resolutions, and by satisfying or outThere was in France, indeed, at this time, no doing the extravagant wishes and expectations legitimate, wholesome, or real aristocracy. of the most extravagant and sanguine populace The noblesse, who were persecuted for bear- that ever existed. For a man to get a lead in ing that name, were quite disconnected from such an assembly, it was by no means necesthe people. Their habits of perpetual resi- sary that he should have previously possessed dence in the capital, and their total independ- any influence or authority in the community; ence of the good opinion of their vassals, that he should be connected with powerful had deprived them of any real influence over families, or supported by great and extensive the minds of the lower orders; and the or-associations. If he could dazzle and overawe ganization of society had not yet enabled the rich manufacturers or proprietors to assume such an influence. The persons sent as deputies to the States-General, therefore, were those chiefly who, by intrigue and boldness, and by professions of uncommon zeal for what were then the great objects of popular pursuit, had been enabled to carry the votes of the electors. A notion of talent, and an opinion that they would be loud and vehement in supporting those requests upon which the people had already come to a decision, were their passports into that assembly. They were sent there to express the particular demands of the people, and not to give a general pledge of their acquiescence in what might there ce enacted. They were not the hereditary patrons of the people, but their hired advocates for a particular pleading.They had no general trust or authority over them, but were chosen as their special messengers, out of a multitude whose influence and pretensions were equally powerful.

When these men found themselves, as it were by accident, in possession of the whole power of the state, and invested with the absolute government of the greatest nation

in debate; if he could obtain the acclamations of the mob of Versailles, and make himself familiar to the eyes and the ears of the assembly and its galleries, he was in a fair train for having a great share in the direction of an assembly exercising absolute sovereignty over thirty millions of men. The prize was too tempting not to attract a multitude of competitors; and the assembly for many months was governed by those who outvied their associates in the impracticable extravagance of their patriotism, and sacrificed most profusely the real interests of the people at the shrine of a precarious popularity.

In this way, the assembly, from the inherent vices of its constitution, ceased to he respect. able or useful. The same causes speedily put an end to its security, and converted it into an instrument of destruction.

Mere popularity was at first the instrument by which this unsteady legislature was gov erned: But when it became apparent, that whoever could obtain the direction or command of it, must possess the whole authority of the state, parties became less scrupulous about the means they employed for that purpose, and soon found out that violence and

every thing on the credit of their zealous patriotism and inexperienced abilities, they had sought to strengthen themselves by an alliance with what was respectable in the existing establishments, and attached themselves at first as disciples to those whom they might fairly expect speedily to outgrow and eclipse.

terror were infinitely more effectual and ex- was attached, from their fortune, their age, or peditious than persuasion and eloquence. The their official station; if, in short, instead of people at large, who had no attachment to grasping presumptuously at the exclusive diany families or individuals among their dele-rection of the national councils, and arrogating gates, and who contented themselves with idolizing the assembly in general, so long as it passed decrees to their liking, were passive and indifferent spectators of the transference of power which was effected by the pikes of the Parisian multitude; and looked with equal affection upon every successive junto which assumed the management of its deliberations. Having no natural representatives, they felt themselves equally connected with all who exercised the legislative function; and, being destitute of a real aristocracy, were without the means of giving effectual support even to those who might appear to deserve it. Encouraged by this situation of affairs, the most daring, unprincipled, and profligate, proceeded to seize upon the defenceless legislature, and, driving all their antagonists before them by violence or intimidation, entered without opposition upon the supreme functions of govemment. They soon found, however, that the arms by which they had been victorious, were capable of being turned against themselves; and those who were envious of their success, or ambitious of their distinction, easily found means to excite discontent among the multitude, now inured to insurrection, and to employ them in pulling down those very individuals whom they had so recently exalted. The disposal of the legislature thus became a prize to be fought for in the clubs and conspiracies and insurrections of a corrupted metropolis; and the institution of a national representative had no other effect, than that of laying the government open to lawless force and flagitious audacity.

It is in this manner, it appears to us, that from the want of a natural and efficient aristocracy to exercise the functions of representative legislators, the National Assembly of France was betrayed into extravagance, and fell a prey to faction; that the institution itself became a source of public misery and disorder, and converted a civilized monarchy, first into a sanguinary democracy, and then into a military despotism.

It would be the excess of injustice, we have already said, to impute those disastrous consequences to the moderate and virtuous individuals who sat in the Constituent Assembly: But if it be admitted that they might have been easily foreseen, it will not be easy to exculpate them from the charge of very blameable imprudence. It would be difficult, indeed, to point out any course of conduct by which those dangers might have been entirely avoided: But they would undoubtedly have been less formidable, if the enlightened members of the Third Estate had endeavoured to form a party with the more liberal and popular among the nobility; if they had associated to themselves a greater number of those to whose persons a certain degree of influence

Upon a review of the whole matter, it seems impossible to acquit those of the revolutionary patriots, whose intentions are admitted to be pure, of great precipitation, presumption, and imprudence. Apologies may be found for them, perhaps, in the inexperience which was incident to their situation; in their constant apprehension of being separated before their task was accomplished; in the exasperation which was excited by the insidious proceedings of the cabinet; and in the intoxication which naturally resulted from the magnitude of their early triumph, and the noise and resounding of their popularity. But the errors into which they fell were inexcusable, we think, in politicians of the eighteenth century; and while we pity their sufferings, and admire their genius, we cannot feel much respect for their wisdom, or any surprise at their miscarriage.

The preceding train of reflection was irresistibly suggested to us by the title and the contents of the volumes now before us. Among the virtuous members of the first Assembly, there was no one who stood higher than Bailly. As a scholar and a man of science, he had long stood in the very first rank of celebrity: His private morals were not only irreproachable, but exemplary; and his character and dispositions had always been remarkable for gentleness, moderation, and philanthropy. Drawn unconsciously, if we may believe his own account, into public life, rather than impelled into it by any movement of ambition, he participated in the enthusiasm, and in the imprudence, from which no one seemed at that time to be exempted; and in spite of an early retreat, speedily suffered that fate by which all the well meaning were then destined to expiate their errors. His popularity was at one time equal to that of any of the idols of the day; and if it was gained by some degree of blameable indulgence and unjustifiable zeal, it was forfeited at last (and along with his life) by a resolute opposition to disorder, and a meritorious perseverance in the discharge of his duty.

The sequel of this article, containing a full abstract of the learned author's recollections of the first six months only of his mayoralty, is now omitted; both as too minute to retain any interest at this day, and as superseded by the more comprehensive details which will be found in the succeeding article.

(September, 1818.)

Considérations sur les Principaux Evènemens de la Révolution Françoise. Ouvrage Posthuma de Madame la Baronne de Staël. Publié par M. LE DUC DE BROGLIE et M. Le Baron A. DE STAËL. En trois tomes. 8vo. pp. 1285. Londres: 1818.

No book can possibly possess a higher | interest than this which is now before us. It is the last, dying bequest of the most brilliant writer that has appeared in our days; and it treats of a period of history which we already know to be the most important that has occurred for centuries; and which those who look back on it, after other centuries have elapsed, will probably consider as still more important.

like this, we have not yet facts enough for so much philosophy; and must be contented, we fear, for a long time to come, to call maný things accidental, which it would be more satisfactory to refer to determinate causes. In her estimate of the happiness, and her notions of the wisdom of private life, we think her both unfortunate and erroneous. She makes passions and high sensibilities a great deal too indispensable; and varnishes We cannot stop now to say all that we think over all her pictures too uniformly with the of Madame de Staël:—and yet we must say, glare of an extravagant or affected enthuthat we think her the most powerful writer siasm. She represents men, in short, as a that her country has produced since the time great deal more unhappy, more depraved, of Voltaire and Rousseau-and the greatest and more energetic, than they are- -and writer, of a woman, that any time or any seems to respect them the more for it. In country has produced. Her taste, perhaps, her politics she is far more unexceptionable. is not quite pure; and her style is too irregu- She is everywhere the warm friend and anilar and ambitious. These faults may even mated advocate of liberty-and of liberal, go deeper. Her passion for effect, and the practical, and philanthropic principles. On tone of exaggeration which it naturally pro- those subjects we cannot blame her enthu duces, have probably interfered occasionally siasm, which has nothing in it vindictive or with the soundness of her judgment, and provoking; and are far more inclined to envy given a suspicious colouring to some of her than to reprove that sanguine and buoyant representations of fact. At all events, they temper of mind which, after all she has seen have rendered her impatient of the humbler and suffered, still leads her to overrate, in our task of completing her explanatory details, apprehension, both the merit of past attempts or stating in their order all the preinises of at political amelioration, and the chances of her reasonings. She gives her history in their success hereafter. It is in that futurity, abstracts, and her theories in aphorisms:- we fear, and in the hopes that make it preand the greater part of her works, instead of sent, that the lovers of mankind must yet, presenting that systematic unity from which for a while, console themselves for the disapthe highest degrees of strength and beauty pointments which still seem to beset them. and clearness must ever be derived, may be If Madame de Staël, however, predicts with fairly described as a collection of striking too much confidence, it must be admitted fragments-in which a great deal of repe- that her labours have a powerful tendency to tition does by no means diminish the effect realize her predictions. Her writings are all of a good deal of inconsistency. In those full of the most animating views of the imsame works, however, whether we consider provement of our social condition, and the them as fragments or as systems, we do not means by which it may be effected-the most hesitate to say that there are more original striking refutations of prevailing errors on and profound observations-more new images these great subjects-and the most persuasive -greater sagacity combined with higher im- expostulations with those who may think their agination and more of the true philosophy interest or their honour concerned in mainof the passions, the politics, and the literature taining them. Even they who are the least of her contemporaries-than in any other inclined to agree with her, must admit that author we can now remember. She has great there is much to be learned from her writings; eloquence on all subjects; and a singular and we can give them no higher praise than pathos in representing those bitterest agonies to say, that their tendency is not only to pro of the spirit, in which wretchedness is aggra- mote the interests of philanthropy and indevated by remorse, or by regrets that partake pendence, but to soften, rather than exasperate, of its character. Though it is difficult to re-the prejudices to which they are opposed. sist her when she is in earnest, we cannot say that we agree in all her opinions, or approve of all her sentiments. She overrates the importance of literature, either in determining the character or affecting the happiness of mankind; and she theorises too confidently on its past and its future history. On subjects

Of the work before us, we do not know very well what to say. It contains a multitude of admirable remarks-and a still greater number of curious details; for Madame de Staël was not only a contemporary, but an eye witness of much that she describes, and had the very best access to learn what did not fall