accompany it, means no such thing. Thus allied, it implies the art of living agreeably in courts and in assemblies, in boudoirs and in sallons, at petits-soupers and grands-dîners; the art which persons of wealth and fashion invent for their own convenience, and which thence descends, with decreasing intensity, to inferior ranks. It is the art which gives currency to folly, and polish to vice, and grace to depravity, and unworthiness to homely virtue, and ease to the intercourse of the polite. This art indeed, or rather this portion of the art de vivre, once was well understood in France, but only this portion; and this surely is not the most useful. It is painful to read such an opinion in the works of a man, who, as an historian and a philosopher, stands so eminent:but the perfection which the French had attained in this art biassed his mind, and he was the dupe of their politeness; seductive, however, as were the Parisian coteries in which Mr. Hume lived, our general information—our rectitude of mind-our cordiality of feeling were unknown to them. And could Mr. Hume be gratified by conversation in which these were wanting? or did he not perceive their absence? The intellect of the French is lively, quick, and sensitive; it is particularly happy in the glances it takes of transitory relations, and in all cases where ready perception is necessary; but it is unfortunate in all that depends upon combinations and generalization. It does not take enlarged views, or draw comprehensive conclusions. Guided by sensation more than by reason, it judges from exceptions, not from rules; because the rarity of exceptions obtrudes their notice upon the senses, and rules are matter for reflection. It has not therefore the greatness and stability, the perseverance, the solidity necessary for practical and established liberty. It may oppose tyranny, it may pull down despotism, for these are works of destruction; but there is little chance while it remains as it is, that it will put any thing better in their place. The French sçavants, by the splendour of whose renown the world has been dazzled, are the exceptions to the general state of knowledge in the country; neither is it to be wondered that a few among a very active people should advance most rapidly, as soon as their vivacity can submit to be confined within the severer limits of scientific truth. But grand and comprehensive views on the one hand, and, on the other, sober, rational practicability are always wanting. Yet notwithstanding all that we have said against the probability of liberty in France, deduced from the past history of that country, and which, we confess, appears to us to contain the most discouraging prognostics we have met with in the annals of any European nation, we are not so hardened in our opinions as totally to exclude the possibility of success. Sad indeed would be the PP4 the lot of mortals if they never could improve. We most conscientiously believe in the reformation of all our fellow-creatures; and we hold their amendment to be more certain, as their repentance is more sincere, and their contrition more hearty. But expiations such as these are not alone sufficient to fit them for a better condition in the system of society; and human prosperity must be secured by principles more active. Those constitute, so to say, the theory of moral regeneration; but on earth, all is practice. What we require, before we can give up our opinion, is not merely sorrow for the past, but a total and fundamental reform of character and mind, New hearts must be infused into the people unused to liberty, before they can be free; and it is in their actions that we read their hearts. We expect, then, that the advocates who support an opposite doctrine from ours, and maintain the aptitude of the French nation for liberty, should point out to us such a change in their actions--not in their words, their professions, their declamations—not in their laws, their institutions, their forms of government-as may authorize a change in our opinions. We should be the first and the most happy to submit to their arguments, could they convince us that the late political troubles of France had been attended by a real and practical diminution of moral and political ill to that country only-for we will not be too unreasonable on the score of benefits conferred on other nations-that the pretexts upon which the French revolution was grounded, really were its causes; that, by it, the past vices of the nation had been reformed, or its past virtues strengthened; that new virtues had been engendered; that in a human sense the correction of evils had been pursued by no animosities, and animosity followed by no blood; that abuses had not been supplanted by crimes, and partial ill by general desolation; that justice, if not robbed of all its severity, had retained none which the public good did not demand; that war, if not stripped of all its dreadful engines, had practised no superfluous modes of misery; that civil discord had lost its fury, and revenge its stings, and duplicity its wiles; that the new champions of new freedom had directed their ingenuity to diminish, not to encrease the sad stores of human affliction; that their generosity had not been universal spoliation, their liberty not licentiousness, their equality not envy, their philanthropy not vengeance, their fraternity not the clasp of death; that toleration had some other origin beside the belief in no God; that incredulity had not erected its inquisition to exterminate all who were guilty of religion; and that Atheism had not kindled its fires of persecution, hotter than the flames of intolerance. What we ask surely is not much; and we stand eager and anxious to be refuted. The ordinary feelings of humanity would be sufficient to make us ardently desire to be con victed of error; but we can assume a position more direct, one, of which the least delicate inquisitors of moral motives own the influence: England hardly has a dearer interest than that our opinion should not be correct. As the welfare of the good is promoted by good men; as the interest of the virtuous is to live among the virtuous; of peaceful provinces to have peaceful neighbours; of commercial nations to lie near opulent empires; so it is the interest of free states to be surrounded by free states. The native rights of mankind have nothing to fear from men who inhale the sacred breath of liberty. The higher France shall rise, then, in the scale of freedom, the higher Britain will be carried; and, as we do not think our present horizon is the verge of earth, exquisitely as we are gratified by the possession of the good it encircles, we hope and trust, nay, we are confident, that the species has yet much possible progress allotted to it, in that boundless space, whose centre is every where, but whose circumference, like the Riphean mountains of antiquity, recede indefinitely as mankind advances. Perhaps since the diffusion of Christianity, but surely during the last and wisest centuries, Britain has stood foremost in the infinite course of reaIt is she who has carried the undiscovered centre forwards, and made the inscrutable circumference expand. She is the foremost beacon of the civilized world; and the best security that her lights, and with them those of all mankind, shall not be extinguished is, that other nations shall follow and contemplate. The nearest in place we should hope to see the nearest in emulation; and that wisdom, virtue, and liberty should confirm to us the associates and competitors which vicinity had given; in order that what is termed art in the construction of society, may not be opposed to nature. It is by these principles that we would be judged; and if, in the desire to impress upon others the warm conviction which we feel ourselves, and in which both mind and soul participate, some bitterness has escaped us, it is the bitterness of sorrow, not of malignity. The nation we wish to know the most improved, is France. 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