ever, and it solemnly bound itself to obey them; they pledged themselves never to tolerate such opinions, and the pledge was hailed by universal acclamations, as the only thing wanting to make the triumph complete and the fruits enduring. The greater part of the enthusiasm was in truth levelled against these opinions; nothing elicited so much general transport as the restoration of something that they had overthrown, or the destruction of something that they had raised; and be it remembered, that this was prompted, not by speculation, but by the fulness of terrible experiment. The English people, almost to a man, shared in this feeling. At that moment, there was scarcely an individual in the nation who durst say a syllable in favour of "liberal opinions," or who did not load them with execrations. The revolutionists crept trembling into holes and corners to avoid public scorn, until there did not seem to be one left in existence in Europe.

Our readers will bear this in mind, because the steps which the Allied Powers have lately taken against revolutionary doctrines, have been represented to be a foul violation of the pledges which they gave at the peace. In taking these steps, they have only redeemed these pledges. Their conduct has been perfectly consistent with the declarations which they then made, and which were then eagerly acquiesced in by all men-with the feelings which then animated Europe, when it was perhaps better able to feel justly on such matters than at present. If these doctrines have now obtained a certain degree of favour, and if England have been induced to regard them with benignity, the Continental Powers cannot at any rate be charged with breach of faith on this point; and it is even a matter of doubt, whether the praise for wisdom belongs to them, or to those who have changed their opinions.

The Continental Monarchs then spontaneously, solemnly, and distinctly adınitted their power to be a trust -they spontaneously admitted that popular institutions, adapted to the character and needs of their subjects, were necessary; and all their words and deeds evinced a sincere wish to give rational and practical liberty to

all Europe. They gave freedom to France and Holland; the King of Prussia promised a constitution to his people, and the Emperor of Russia very greatly ameliorated the condition of a large portion of his subjects. The glorious work was actually begun, and went forward with a rapidity that could scarcely have been expected from its peril and magnitude. That the Sovereigns religiously intended to finish, cannot be doubted, unless we believe that they were absolutely insane when they promised and made a beginning. Never since" the foundations of the world were laid," was the world illuminated with such dazzling hopes, and overhung with such transcendent blessings as at that moment ! Never had there been, from the beginning of time, and never will there again be, before its end, an hour so richly fraught with all that the needs of mankind call for, and so auspicious for its beneficial dispensations. Kings and subjects were brothers; ministers were reverenced as honest men, and all was love and unanimity. Liberty was not to be won, but given; it was not to receive its form from fools and madmen, but from those who were skilled in its nature and operation; it was not to sweep away all existing government, that it might stand upon the ruins; but it was to take the existing government as its foundation and bulwark; and those who were to give, and those who were to receive, had alike, from an age of flame and torture, derived every variety of instruction necessary for enabling them to fabricate and use properly. The trebly accursed French Revolution, smote, crushed, and trampled upon until scarcely a vestige seemed to remain, still retained sufficient power to snatch away the treasures from the hands of the recipients, and to fill the splendid prospect with the clouds of strife, madness, and disappointment. It was not when this revolution burst forth and shook every kingdom to its centre; neither was it when it became a despotism of bayonets, and laid the whole continent in chains, that its most withering curse fell upon the world. It was at this hour, when its expiring energies blasted the liberty that was falling upon every continental nation, and goaded the slumbering

chain and rod into perpetual exercise, that its baleful influence spread the most widely, penetrated the most deeply, destroyed the most extensively, and gave the most deadly blow to the best interests of mankind.

A few months, a very few months, sufficed to shew that men, professing the fundamental principles of this revolution, were yet tolerably numerous in France, and some other parts of Europe. France had obtained a representative form of government; her Opposition was composed chiefly of these men, and among them were to be found some of the old hackneyed revolutionary leaders. The principles of the revolution, therefore, after all the destruction and misery they had produced the defeats and hatred they had met with--the gigantic and costly efforts that had been made to put them down-were thus strangely elevated into a kind of constitutional creed, and became even the legal system of faith of one of the two great parties into which France was unavoidably split by her freedom. They of course wore a new name, and this was quite sufficient to make them pass for new things with the ignorant of the continent, ay, and with certain of the knowing of England. They were industriously taught in France, they spread rapidly in the adjoining countries, they, and those who taught them, were incessantly eulogized by the Whigs and Whig press of this country, and they therefore once more divided the people of Europe. Buonaparte regained the French throne, was again expelled, and this worked up party feelings everywhere to the highest point of madness. This took place at the moment when the Continental Sovereigns had promised to remodel their fabrics of government on the basis of popular freedom, and had even begun the work.

The precise circumstances in which these Sovereigns were consequently placed were these France was so little to be depended upon, that they were compelled to quarter large armies upon her to keep her from revolution; and Germany, Italy, Spain, &c. were very deeply infected with the pestilential principles, from the horrible fruits of which, Europe had only just been delivered. A powerful portion of every people, and almost the only portion that felt strongly on political

matters, were clamouring for radical, political, and social changes,-not for those which the Sovereigns contemplated, but for others wholly different, and they spared no effort to obtain them by force. If the Liberals, the Constitutionalists, or whatever may be their proper name, had been actuated by the creed of the English Tories, the French Royalists, or our genuine Whigs; and had been men of wealth, intelligence, and fair personal character, the Sovereigns might have gone on successfully with the work of liberty, though they must have encountered great and manifold dangers: but the creed of these persons was substantially that of the old Jacobins. It consisted of quenchless animosity against Royalty, Aristocra cy, and Christianity, in the abstract-of eternal invectives against Kings, Ministers, Nobles, and Priests, merely because they were these. It called for the destruction of all old feelings and institutions, merely because they were old; and it declared all existing dynasties and statesmen to be incapable of governing, for no other reason, than because they had already governed. Everything was to be changed and reversed; not merely forms of government, but forms of society-not merely civil, but ecclesiastical institutions,

religious, as well as political, feelings, and habits and opinions of private, as well as of public, life. Scorning the principle of qualification, it adopted one of exclusion which nothing could evade; it declared all reigning Sovereigns and their Ministers, all Nobles and teachers of religion, all existing public functionaries, to be incapable of embracing it, and of being intrusted with power under it; and it placed them in a state of hopeless proscription. It addressed itself exclusively to the poor, the ignorant, the credulous, the silly, and the depraved: these alone were declared to be capable of receiving it, and of being blessed by it; they were to be rendered deists and democrats, and fired with an inextinguishable hatred against their rulers, their religious instructors, and all above them. Its hostility was not confined to absolute governments. The governments of England and France were as much abused by it, as those of Austria and Russia; and it made no distinction whatever between the supporters of

arbitrary power, and the English Tories and the French Royalists.

That this creed was this in spirit and tendency, will be denied by no man living who has attentively studied it, as it has been put forth from time to time in the last seven years. It was the creed of the French Revolution, in some parts slightly modified, in others differently coloured, to conciliate and allure, but still substantially the same for operation and products.

The personal character of those who conduct the affairs of a nation is a matter of very high importance, even if the form of government be settled. An ignorant, imbecile, and unprincipled ministry might involve this country in ruin, without once offending against the laws and constitution. The servant of the state, as well as the menial of the family, must be honest, industrious, and duly qualified for discharging his duties in the best manner. But personal character is of the very last importance in those who undertake to frame and establish new forms of government. All government is for a moment destroyed-the whole community is convulsed, and one portion of it is arrayed against the other -the character of omnipotence which time has given to rulers is destroyed in the eyes of all, and speculative politics become the rage even with ploughmen-the new institutions require a considerable time to produce practical good, and in the interval they jar with national habits and prejudices, and seem to the ignorant to be only evils-those who lead in the change have necessarily, for a considerable period, the nation at their mercy-they are without check, or restraint; the power cannot be taken from them, whatever may be their conduct; neither perhaps, if practica-. ble, could it be done, without involving the country in complete ruin. None but men possessing the very utmost share of knowledge, experience, wisdom, integrity, energy, patriotism, and ability, that men can possess, ought to be suffered to attempt to establish in a country a new form of government, whatever may be the defects of the old one. But the continental constitutionalists were destitute, not of one, but of every qualification. They were not men of rank, wealth, and influence, looking with

scorn upon politics as a trade; but they were needy, political, and military adventurers, notoriously disappointed men, and this threw a cloud of suspicion over their motives which nothing could dispel. They were persons of the most slender capacityprofoundly ignorant-the slaves of passion-and, so far as their public and private lives were known, of great profligacy. They were avowedly deists and democrats-practisers of the "liberal opinions," which have of late been so fully explained to us by various publications, sent into the world by themselves. Such were the leaders-men, whom the most charitable could not suspect of honesty, and who could not have managed the affairs of a country village, without plunging them in ruin.

The followers were the poor, profligate, ambitious, turbulent, romantic, portion- the scum of the upper classes; blind and perjured armies, and an ignorant, deluded, senseless populace.

We shall not be charged with exaggeration. The revolutionary_leaders of France, Spain, Naples, Portugal, &c. have been fully placed before the eyes of all men, and keeping them perfectly distinct from those who after their success were unavoidably drawn into their train, there never was such a tremendous mass of poverty, ignorance, inexperience, romance, profligacy, imbecility, and folly exhibited to the wonder of the world. They consisted of precisely that portion of mankind which ought never on any account to be suffered to make changes in forms of government, or the constitution of society. The "Constitutionalists" of France were the dolts and knaves of her revolution, and the minions of Buonaparte; the weathercocks who, though veering about every day of their lives, could never once look at public freedom, or the good of mankind. They were not to amend the Charter and remove the Ministers; they were not even to be content with changing the constitution altogether: oh no! they were to banish the reigning branch of the Royal Family, take the sovereignty entirely into their hands, and make any man whatever king, who might submit to be their slave. Those of Spain established a constitution which nothing whatever but the power of

almost ever since the peace; the Continental Governments and the Constitutionalists have been warring against each other for nearly the whole of the intervening period. If the latter had consisted of the wealth, intelligence, talent, and integrity of the respective states-of men, religious, enlightened, and honourable; having no wish for office and emolument; anxious to protect rather than injure religion and public morals; and merely desiring to reform obvious abuses, and to obtain institutions clearly necessary for general good, we should have been among their warmest supporters; and we are much mistaken if they would have been, or could have been, resisted. But when they were what we have stated-When the lust of power and profit was obviously their chief motive-when they wished not only to effect a radical change in civil institutions, but to reverse the relation in which the different classes of society stand towards each other, to trample upon religion, and to alter altogether the feelings and habits of mankind; and when the forms of government which they sought to establish were demonstrably incapable of enduring, and of producing anything but evils and ruin-we had no choice left, but to become their bitter enemies, or to turn out of doors our reason and principles. The question was not, ought the absolute governments of the continent to remain unchanged?-But it was, ought they to be changed for such as the Liberals would raise in their stead? and we could not hesitate. To remain neutral was impossible. The Liberals made the circle of their hostility so excessively wide, that it included all the best interests of mankind, and it completely embraced England. They fought as much against our constitutional, religious, and other principles, as against anything that they sought to destroy; they called our King, Ministers, and Tories, tyrants; and he must be blind indeed who cannot see, that if they had obtained possession of the continental thrones, ours would have been placed in the most imminent danger.

With that blundering stupidity which they displayed throughout, instead of making, as they easily might have done, the cause of the Allied Monarchs, the cause of despotism alone, and thus leaving it almost without de

fenders; they jumbled it up with all that is dear to humanity, and made it the cause of God and man. The consequences they are now bitterly deploring. It fills us with shame and sorrow to have to record the facts, that there are persons in this land of liberty, so miserably ignorant of the nature of liberty, as to believe that these Liberals were capable of establishing it, and that their wretched constitutions were capable of yielding it; that there are persons in this glorious nation so hostile to all that is true în feeling and principle, and to all the highest interests of mankind, as to be the eulogists and champions of these Liberals. The Whigs are these persons; and of course the Edinburgh Review has put forth its whole energies against the Allied Sovereigns. Against these Sovereigns, the two Articles which we are about to notice are directed; and we have therefore thought it proper to preface our remarks with this plain statement.

The first is declamatory, somewhat frothy, and not a little profuse in assumption and mis-statement. It exhibits occasional gleams of candour, a great deal of childish prejudice, much visionary theory, and no logic at all: in its flights after hypothesis, philosophy, and eloquence, it makes admissions which are far more than sufficient to strangle it wholly as a piece of reasoning. It is, however, when we remember what the Review has in late years been, respectable as a literary effort, and even gentlemanly as a morsel of party vituperation. The second is a disgrace even to the Edinburgh Review. It is the veriest piece of common-place that ever dunce scrawled upon paper. It contains nothing that has not been given to the world ten thousand times before, by the Morning Chronicles and Black Dwarfs, in ten thousand times better language. It is so deplorably wretched in spirit and literary execution, that we cannot divest ourselves of the belief, that it has been written by some newspaper editor, whom the decline of Radicalism has thrown out of bread; and that charity has blindly admitted it, without being aware of the blot that it would cast upon the remnant of the Review's reputation. In spite of the historical air which is laboriously thrown over it, and the tenderness with which the

great man"" Napoleon," is spoken of, we will not-we cannot-believe