however, that they should be apprized, before | superior to what we are-what is meant is, they take an irreparable step, how little it is possible to foresee, whether the earth, stripped of its vegetation, shall become an unprofitable desert or a pestilential marsh."*

that the customs which they adopted were the result of experienced utility and known necessity; and that the collection of usages, called the constitution, is more perfect than any hu man wisdom could at once have framed, because it has arisen out of social wants, and been adapted to the exigencies of actual prac tice, during a long course of ages. To demolish and reconstruct such a constitution, to remove power from the hands in which it was formerly vested, and throw it into channels where it never was accustomed to flow, is an evil incomparably greater, an experiment infinitely more hazardous, than the total subversion of the liberties of the people by an ambitious monarch or a military usurper, because it not only destroys the balance of power at the moment, but renders it impossible for the nation to right itself at the close of the tyranny, and raises up a host of separate revo

The great cause, therefore, of the devastating march of revolutions, and the total subversion which they in general effect in the liberties of the people, is the fundamental changes in laws and institutions which they effect. As long as these remain untouched, or not altered in any considerable degree, any passing despotism, how grievous soever, is only of temporary effect; and when the tyranny is overpast, the public freedom again runs into its wonted and consuetudinary channels. Thus the successive tyrannies of Richard the Third, Henry the Eighth, and James the Second, produced no fatal effects on English freedom, because they subsisted only during the lifetime of an arbitrary or capricious sovereign; and, upon his death, the ancient privi-lutionary interests, vested at the moment with leges of the people revived, and the liberties supreme authority, and dependent for their exof the nation again were as extensive as ever. istence upon the continuance of the revoluThe great rebellion hardly partook at all, at tionary regime. It is to government what a least in its early stages, of a democratic move- total change of landed property is to the body ment. Its leaders were the House of Com-politic; a wound which, as Ireland sufficiently mons, who possessed four-fifths of the landed proves, a nation can never recover. property of the kingdom, and were proprietors of three times as much territory as the Upper House; hence no considerable changes in laws, institutions, or customs, took place. "The courts of law," says Lingard, "still administered law on the old precedents, and, with the exception of a change of the dynasty on the throne, the people perceived little change in the administration of government."+ Power was not, during the course of the Revolution, transferred into other and inferior hands, from whence it never can be wrenched but at the sword's point; it remained in the House of Commons, the legal representatives of the kingdom, till it was taken from them by the hand of Cromwell. The true democratic spirit appeared at the close of the struggles in the Fifth Monarchy men, but their numbers were too inconsiderable to acquire any preponderance before the usurpation of the daring Protector. Accordingly, on the Restoration, the first thing that government did, was to issue writs for all persons to return members to Parliament who were qualified prior to 1640; and after an abeyance of twenty years, the blood of the constitution was again poured into its ancient veins. The Revolution of 1688, as it is called, was not strictly speaking a revolution; it was merely a change of dynasty, accompanied by a unanimous effort of the public will, and unattended by the least change in the aristocratic influence, or the balance of powers in the state.

The wisdom of our ancestors is a foolish phrase, which does not convey the meaning which it is intended to express. When it is said that institutions formed by the wisdom of former ages should not be changed, it is not meant that our ancestors were gifted with any extraordinary sagacity, or were in any respect

* Mackintosh's History of England, i. 73.
† Lingard, xi. 1, 12.

As the Reform Bill proposes to throw a large part of the political power in the state into new and inexperienced hands, the change thereby contemplated is incomparably greater and more perilous than the most complete prostration of the liberties, either of the people or the aristocracy, by a passing tyranny. It is the creation of new and formidable revolutionary interests which will never expire; the vesting of power in hands jealous of its possession, in proportion to the novelty of its acquisition, and their own unfitness to wield it, which is the insuperable evil. Such a calamity is inflicted as effectually by the tranquil and pacific formation of a new constitution, as by the most terrible civil wars, or the severest military oppression. The liberties of England survived the wars of the Roses, the fury of the Covenant, and the tyranny of Henry VIII.; but those of France were at once destroyed by the insane innovations of the Constituent Assembly. And this destruction took place without any bloodshed or opposition, under the auspices of a reforming king, a conceding nobility, and an intoxicated people, by the mere unresisted votes of the States-General.

The example of France is so extremely and exactly applicable to our changes-the pacific and applauded march of its innovations was so precisely similar to that which has so long been pressed upon the legislature in this coun try, that it is not surprising that it should be an extremely sore subject with the Reformersand that they should endeavour, by every me, thod of ingenuity, misrepresentation, and concealment, to withdraw the public attention from so damning a precedent. It is fortunate, therefore, for the cause of truth, that at this juncture a work has appeared, flowing from the least suspicious quarter, which at once puts this matter on the right footing, and demonstrates that it was not undue delay, but

over rapidity of concession, which brought | decently dressed was allowed to vote, without about the unexampled horrors of its Revolu- asking any questions.* tion.

M. Dumont, whose "Souvenirs sur Mirabeau" is prefixed to this article, was the early and faithful friend of that extraordinary man. He wrote a great proportion of his speeches, and composed almost entirely the Courier de Provence, a journal published in the name of Mirabeau, and to which a great part of his political celebrity was owing. The celebrated declaration on the Rights of Man, published by the Constituent Assembly, was almost entirely composed by him. He was the intimate friend of Brissot, Garat, Roland, Vergniaud, Talleyrand, and all the leaders of the popular party, and his opinion was deemed of so much importance, that he was frequently consulted by the ministers as to the choice of persons to fill the highest situations. In this country he was the intimate and valued friend of Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr. Whitbread, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Holland, and all the party at Holland House. Latterly, he was chiefly occupied in arranging, composing, and putting into order the multifarious effusions of Mr. Bentham's genius; and from his pen almost all the productions of that great and original man have flowed. Half the fame of Mirabeau, and more than half that of Bentham, rest on his labours. He was no common person who was selected to be the coadjutor of two such men, and rendered the vehicle of communicating their varied and original thoughts to the world.

When the States-General met in May 6, 1789, the king and his minister, Neckar, were received with cold and dignified courtesy by the nobles and clergy, but rapturous applause by the Tiers Etat, who saw in them the authors of the prodigious addition which the number and consequence of their order had received.t

May 9. No sooner had the States-General proceeded to business, than the Tiers Etat de manded that the nobles and clergy should sit and vote with them in one chamber; a proceeding unexampled in French history, and which it was foreseen would give them the complete ascendency, by reason of their numerical su periority to those of both the other orders united.‡

May 10 to June 9. The nobles and clergy resisted for a short while this prodigious inno vation, and insisted that, after the manner of all the States-General which had assembled in France from the foundation of the monarchy, the orders should sit and vote by separate chambers; and that this was more especially indispensable since the recent duplication of the Tiers Etat had given that body a numeri cal superiority over the two other orders taken together.§

June 17. The Tiers Etat declared themselves the National Assembly of France, a designation, says Dumont, which indicated their in tention to usurp the whole sovereignty of "the state.

June 21. The king, terrified at the thoughts of a collision with the Commons, and thinking to put himself at the head of the movement, first persuaded, and at length, through the medium of Marshal Luxembourg, commanded the nobles to yield to this demand of the Tiers Etat.||

Before quoting the highly interesting observations of this able and impartial observer on the French Constituent Assembly, and comparing them with the progress of Reform in this country, we shall recall to our readers' recollection the dates of the leading measures of that celebrated body, as, without having them in view, the importance of M. Dumont's The nobles and clergy gradually yielded. observations cannot be duly appreciated. Such On the 19th June, 1789, one hundred and fortya survey will at the same time bring to the seven of the clergy joined the Tiers Etat, and test the accuracy of Mr. Macaulay's and Sir on the 25th, the Duke of Orleans, with fortyJohn Hobhouse's assertion, that it was not the seven of the nobles, also deseted their order, concession, but the resistance, of the privi- and adhered to the opposite party. The releged orders, which precipitated the fatal ca- mainder finding their numbers so seriously taract of their Revolution. The abstract is weakened, and urged on by their Reforming abridged from Mignet, the ablest historian on Sovereign, also joined the Tiers Etat, and sat the republican side of which France can with them in one assembly on 27th June.¶ boast, and Lacretelle, the well known annal-"On that day (says Dumont) the Revolution ist of its events. was completed."

In August, 1788, Louis, in obedience to the wishes of the nation, agreed to assemble the States-General, which had not met in France since 1614.

In September, 1789, the king, by the advice of Neckar, by a royal ordinance, doubled the number of the representatives of the Tiers Etat; in other words, he doubled the House of Commons of France,* while those of the clergy and nobles were left at their former amount.

On the 23d June, 1789, the king held a solemn meeting of the whole estates in one assembly, and while he declared the former proceedings of the Tiers Etat.unconstitutional, granted such immense concessions to the people, as never, says Mirabeau, were before granted by a king to his subjects. All the objects of the Revolution, says Mignet, were gained by that royal ordinance.**

July 13. The king ordered the troops, whe had been assembled in the vicinity of the caThe elections in April, 1789, were conduct-pital, to be withdrawn, and sanctioned the esed with the utmost favour to the popular par- tablishment of National Guards.++ ty. No scrutiny of those entitled to vote took place; after the few first days, every person

* Mignet, i. 25.

* Dumont.

Mignet, i. 30.

› Mignet, i. 37. || Lacretelle, Pr. Hist.
¶ Lacretelle, Pr. Hist. i. 42.

†† Ibid. i. 3.

Mignet, i. 37. p. 3. ** Ibid. i. 43.

July 14. The Bastile taken, and all Paris in | aristocracy to stem the torrent. Let us hear an insurrection.

July 16. The king appointed Lafayette commander of the National Guard, and Bailly, the president of the Assembly, mayor of Paris. July 17. The king visited Paris in the midst of a mob of 200,000 revolutionary democrats. Aug. 4. The whole feudal rights, including tithes, abandoned in one night by the nobility, on the motion of the Duke de Noailles.

Aug. 13. Decree of the Assembly declaring all ecclesiastical estates national property. Aug. 20. The Declaration of the Rights of Man issued.

Aug. 23. Freedom of religious opinions proclaimed.

Aug. 24. The unlimited freedom of the press established.

Aug. 25. Dreadful disturbances in Paris on account of famine.

Sept. 13. A new decree on account of the extreme suffering at Paris.

Oct. 5. Versailles invaded by a clamorous mob. The king and queen nearly murdered, and brought captives by a furious mob to Paris.

Nov. 2. Decree passed, on the motion of the Bishop of Autun, for the confiscation and disposal of all ecclesiastical property.

Feb. 24, 1790. Titles of honour abolished. Feb. 26. New division of the kingdom into departments; and all appointments, civil and military, vested in the people.

the opinion of the same great writer, as to who it was that put it in motion. "No revolution," she observes, "can succeed in a great country, unless it is commenced by the aristocratical class. The people afterwards get possession of it, but they cannot strike the first blow. When I recollect that it was the parliaments, the nobles, and the clergy of France, who first strove to limit the royal authority, I am far from insinuating that their design in so doing was culpable. A sincere enthusiasm then animated all ranks of Frenchmen-public spirit had spread universally; and among the higher classes, the most enlightened and generous were those who ardently desired that public opinion should have its due sway in the direction of affairs. But can the privileged ranks, who commenced the Revolution, accuse those who only carried it on? Some will say, we wished only that the changes should proceed a certain length; others, that they should go a step farther; but who can regulate the impulse of a great people when once put in motion ?"* These are the words of sober wisdom, and coming, as they do, from the gifted daughter of M. Neckar, who had so large a share, by the duplication of the Tiers Etat, in the raising of the tempest, and who was so devoted a worshipper of her father's memory, none were ever uttered worthy of more profound meditation.

This is the true principle on the subject. The aid of the Crown, or of a portion of the aristocracy, is indispensable to put the torrent of democracy in motion. After it is fairly set

March 17. Sale of 400 millions of the national domains authorized, and assignats, bearing a forced circulation, issued, to supply theagoing, all their efforts are unavailing to reimmense deficiency of the revenue.*

strain its course. This is what we have all along maintained. Unless the French nobility had headed the mob in demanding the StatesGeneral, matters could never have been brought to a crisis. After they had roused the public feeling, they found, by dear-bought experience, that they were altogether unable to restrain its fury. In this country, the revolutionary party could have done nothing, had they not been supported in their projects of reform by the ministers of the Crown and the Whig nobility. Having been so, we shall see whether they will be better able than their compeers on the other side of the Channel to master the tempest they have raised.

It is unnecessary to go farther. Here it appears, that within two months of the meeting of the States-General, the union of the orders in one chamber, in other words, the annihilation of the House of Peers, was effected, the feudal rights abolished, and the entire sovereignty vested in the National Assembly. In three months, the church property was confiscated, the Rights of Man published, titles annihilated, and the unlimited freedom of the press proclaimed. In five months, the king and royal | family were brought prisoners to Paris. In six months, the distress naturally consequent on these convulsions had attracted the constant attention of the Assembly, and spread the ut- It has been already stated, that a large pormost misery among the people; and in tention of the nobility supported the pretensions months, the total failure of the revenue had of the Tiers Etat. Dumont gives the following rendered the sale of church property, and the picture of the reforming nobles, and of the exissuing of assignats bearing a forced circula-travagant expectations of the different classes tion, necessary, which it is well known soon who supported their favourite innovations : swallowed up property of every description "The house of the Duke de Rochefoucauld throughout France. We do not know what distinguished by its simplicity, the purity of its the reformers consider as turdy concessions manners, and the independence of its princiof the nobility and throne; but when it is re- ples, assembled all those members of the nocollected that all these proceedings were agreed bility who supported the people, the double reto by the king, and passed by the legislature at presentation of the Tiers Etat, the vote per cas the dates here specified, it is conceived that a pita, the abandonment of all privileges, and the more rapid revolutionary progress could hard-like. Condorcet, Dupont, Lafayette, the Duke y be wished for by the most ardent reformer. The authority of Madame de Staël was appealed to in the House of Commons, as illusIrative of the vain attempts of a portion of the

* See Lacretelle; Pr. Hist. p. 1-9, Introduction.

de Liancourt, were the chief persons of that society. Their ruling passion was to create for France a new constitution. Such of the nobility and princes as wished to preserve the ancient

* Revolution Française, i. 125.

constitution of the States-General, formed the aris-Tiers Etat, which violated, when triumphant, tocratic party, against which the public in- all the engagements which it had made whe dignation was so general; but although much in a state of weakness. How grievous it must noise was made about them, their numbers have been to a man of good principles to have were inconsiderable. The bulk of the nation contributed to the success of so unjust a party ! saw only in the States-General the means of di- Yet never man had less reason, morally speak minishing the taxes; the fundholders, so oftening, to reproach himself."-Pp. 66, 67. exposed to the consequences of a violation of public faith, considered them as an invincible rampart against national bankruptcy. The deficit had made them tremble. They were on the point of ruin; and they embraced with warmth | the hope of giving to the revenues of the state a secure foundation. These ideas were utterly inconsistent with each other. The nobility had in their bosom a democratic as well as an aristocratic party. The clergy were divided in the same manner, and so were the commons. No words can convey an idea of the confusion of ideas, the extravagant expectations, the hopes and passions of all parties. You would imagine the world was on the day after the creation.”. Pp. 37, 38.

We have seen that the clergy, by their joining the Tiers Etat, first gave them a decided superiority over the other orders, and vested in their hands omnipotent power, by compelling the nobles to sit and vote with them in an assembly where they were numerically inferior to the popular party. The return they met with in a few months was, a decree confiscating all their property to the service of the state. With bitter and unavailing anguish did they then look back to their insane conduct in so strongly fanning a flame of which they were soon to be the victims. Dumont gives the following striking account of the feelings of one of their reforming bishops, when the tempest they had raised reached their own doors.

This spoliation of the clergy has already commenced in this country, even before the great democratic measure of Reform is carried. As usual also, the supporters of the popular party are likely to be its first victims. We all recollect the decided part which Lord Milton took in supporting the Reform Bill, and the long and obstinate conflict he maintained with Mr. Cartwright, and the Conservative party in Northamptonshire, at the last election. Well, he gained his point, and he is now beginning to taste its fruits. Let us hear the proclamation which he has lately placarded over all his extensive estates in the county of Wicklow"Grosvenor Place, March 10.

"I was in hopes that the inhabitants of our part of the country had too deep sense of the importance of respecting the rights of property, and of obeying the laws, to permit them to contemplate what I can call by no other name than a scheme of spoliation and robbery. It seems that the occupier proposes to withhold payment of tithe, &c.; but let me ask, what is it that entitles the occupier himself to the land which he occupies? Is it not the law which sanctions the lease by which he holds it? The law gives him a right to the cattle which he rears on his land, to the plough with which he cultivates it, and to the car in which he carries his produce to the market; the law also gives him his right to nine-tenths of the produce of his land, but the same law assigns the other tenth to another The Bishop of Chartres was one of the bi-person. In this distribution of the produce of shops who were attached to the popular party; the land, there is no injustice, because the tethat is to say, he was a supporter of the unionnant was perfectly aware of it when he entered of the orders, of the vote by head, and the new | upon his land; but in any forcible change of constitution. He was by no means a man of a political turn, nor of any depth of understanding; but he had so much candour and good faith that he distrusted no one; he never imagined that the Tiers Etat could have any other design but to reform the existing abuses, and do the good which appeared so easy a matter to all the world. A stranger to every species of intrigue, sincere in his intentions, he followed no other guide than his conscience, and what he sincerely believed to be for the public good. His religion was like his politics; he was benevolent, tolerant, and sincerely rejoiced to see the Protestants exempted from every species of constraint. He was well aware that the clergy would be called on to There can be no doubt that the principles make great sacrifices; but never anticipated here laid down by Lord Milton are well foundthat he was destined to be the victim of the Re-ed; but did it never occur to his lordship that volution. I saw him at the time when the they are somewhat inconsistent with those of whole goods of the church were declared na- the Reform Bill? If the principle be correct, tional property, with tears in his eyes, dismiss-"that the transfer of property from one person ing his old domestics, reducing his hospitable to another without an equivalent is robbery," mansion, selling his most precious effects to discharge his debts. He found some relief by pouring his sorrow into my bosom. His regrets were not for himself, but he incessantly accused himself for having suffered himself to be deceived, and embraced the party of the

this distribution there would be great injustice, because it would be a transfer of property from one person to another without an equivalent-in other words, it would be a robbery. The occupier must also remember that the rent he pays to the landlord is calculated upon the principle of his receiving only nine-tenths of the produce-if he were entitled to the other tenth, the rent which we should call upon him to pay would be proportionably higher. All our land is valued to the tenants upon this principle; but if tithes, &c., are swept away without an equivalent, we shall adopt a different principle, and the landlord, not the tenant, will be the gainer. MILTON."

what are we say of the disfranchising the electors of 148 seats in Parliament, and the destruction of property worth 2,500,000l., vested before the Reform tempest began, in the Scotch freeholders? Lords Eldon and Tenterden, it is to be recollected, have declared tha:

these rights "are a property as well as a trust."* | tensions; and even Sieyes, who rejected every They stand, therefore, on the same foundation | thing which tended to preserve the distinction as Lord Fitzwilliam's right to his Irish tithes. of orders, did not venture to table the expresNo more injustice is done by confiscating the sion, National Assembly. It was hazarded for one than the other. But this is just an in- the first time by a deputy named Le Grand; stance how clear-sighted men are to the "rob- there was an immediate call for the vote, and bery" of revolutionary measures when they it was carried by a majority of 500 to 80 approach their own door, and how extremely voices."-Pp. 73, 74. blind when it touches upon the freeholds of others. Lord Milton was a keen supporter of schedule A, and disregarded the exclamations against "robbery and spoliation," which were so loudly made by the able and intrepid Conservative band in the House of Commons. Did his lordship ever imagine that the system of spoliation was to stop short at the freehold corporations, or the boroughs of Tory Peers? He will learn to his cost that the radicals can find as good plunder in the estates of the Whig as the Conservative nobility. But when the day of reckoning comes, he cannot plead the excuse of the honest and benevolent Bishop of Chartres. He was well forewarned of the consequences; the example of France was before his eyes, and it was clearly pointed out to his attention; but he obstinately rushed forward in the insane career of innovation, which, almost under his own eyes, had swallowed up all the reforming nobility and clergy of that unhappy kingdom.

The vast importance of words in revolutionary convulsions, of which Napoleon was so well aware when he said that it was by epithets that you govern mankind," appears in the account given by this able and impartial writer on the designation which the Tiers Etat chose for themselves before their union with the other orders.

"The people of Versailles openly insulted in the streets and at the gates of the Assembly those whom they called Aristocrats. The power of that word became magical, as is always the case with party epithets. What astonishes me is, that there was no contrary denomination fixed on by the opposite party. They were called the Nation. The effects of these two words, when constantly opposed to each other, may readily be conceived.

Though the Commons had already become sensible of their power, there were many opinions on the way in which it should be exerted, and the name to be given to the Assembly. They had not as yet all the audacity which they have since evinced; but the men who looked into futurity clearly saw that this determination would have been of the most important consequences. To declare themselves the National Assembly was to count for nothing the king, the noblesse, and the clergy; it was equivalent to a declaration of civil war, if the government had had sufficient vigour to make any resistance. To declare themselves the Assembly of the Commons, was to express what undoubtedly was the fact, but what would not have answered the purpose of compelling the clergy and nobles to join them. Many denominations were proposed which were neither the one nor the other of these; for every one as yet was desirous to conceal his ultimate pre

* In debate on Reform Bill, Oct. 8, 1831.

This is the never-failing device of the democratic party in all ages. Trusting to the majority of mere numbers on their side, they invariably represent themselves as the whole nation, and the friends of the constitution as a mere fragment, utterly unworthy of consideration or regard. "Who are the Tiers Etat?" said the Abbé Sieyes. "They are the French nation, minus 150,000 privileged individuals." "Who are the Reformers?" says the Times. "They are 24,000,000 of men, minus 200 boroughmongers." By such false sweeping assertions as these, are men's eyes blinded not only to what is honourable, but to what is safe and practicable. By this single device of calling the usurping Commons the National Assembly, the friends of order were deterred from entering into a struggle with what was called, and therefore esteemed, the national will; and many opportunities of stemming the torrent, which, as Dumont shows, afterwards arose, irrecoverably neglected.

Of the fatal weakness which attended the famous sitting of the 23d June, 1789, when Louis made such prodigious concessions to his subjects, without taking at the same time any steps to make the royal authority respected, the opinion of Dumont is as follows:

"Neckar had intended by these concessions to put democracy into the royal hands; but they had the effect of putting the aristocracy under the despotism of the people. We must not consider that royal sitting in itself alone. Viewed in this light, it contained the most extensive concessions that ever monarch made to his people. They would, at any other time, have excited the most lively gratitude. Is a prince powerful? Every thing that he gives is a gift, every thing that he does not resume is a favour. Is he weak? every thing that he concedes is considered as a debt; every thing that he refuses, as an act of injustice.

"The Commons had now set their heart upon being the National Assembly. Every thing which did not amount to that was nothing in their estimation. But to hold a Bed of Justice, annul the decrees of the Commons, make a great noise without having even foreseen any resistance, or taken a single precaution for the morrow, without having taken any steps to prepare a party in the Assembly, was an act of madness, and from it may be dated the ruin of the monarchy. Nothing can be more dangerous than to drive a weak prince to acts of vigour which he is unable to sustain; for when he has exhausted the terrors of words he has no other resource; the authority of the throne has been lowered, and the people have discovered the secret of their monarch's weakness."-P. 87.

The Reformers in this country say, that these immense concessions of Louis failed in their effect of calming the popular effervescence,