MY DÉJEUNER À LA FOURCHETTE. WHAT a beautiful day! Had the weather been wet, And my garden has quite got a Midsummer blush; To embellish my Déjeûner à la Fourchette. I've ordered the people to water the road What's Harris, my butler, attempting to say? 66 Champagne!" why we gave out ten dozen to-day! 'Tis getting quite dark; that unfortunate breeze What accounts there will be in the Herald and Post! On his way from my Déjeûner à la Fourchette. T. H. B I REVOLUTIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, THE title of this paper may lead the reader to imagine that it is political-it is not at least not exclusively. Its object is to bring before the eye a brief review of the wonderful change which has taken place in governments, institutions, manners, arts, science, and manufactures since the year 1800. The result of such a review, in itself by no means uninteresting, will be, in our opinion, a conviction that never was so much done, in the same space of time, since the world began, especially as those revolutions more particularly relate to, and affect Britain and British society. Before we bring this inquiry to bear directly upon our own circumstances, and the position of our own country in the scale of European nations, it may be necessary to take a cursory view of other states, and the alterations which their characters and constitutions have undergone during the last thirty-four years. In France, at the commencement of the century, there existed a Consular Government,-Buonaparte being First Consul-a Government raised upon the ruins of a sad and memorable revolution; in 1802, Buonaparte became Consul for life; in 1804, Emperor; in 1808, he deprived the Pope, who crowned him, of his territories; in 1809, he divorced his wife; in 1810, he married Marie Louise. Between the commencement of his career and its close, he created three kingdoms, Bavaria, Saxony, and Wirtemberg. He made his brother Joseph, King of Spain; his brother Louis, King of Holland; his brother Jerome, King of Westphalia; his brother-in-law Murat, King of Naples; and his son-in-law Eugene, Viceroy of Italy.-Facts, astounding in themselves, not more strongly illustrative of the revolutions of the present century, as connected with France and its Emperor, than as exhibiting the generality of revolutions as to the other nations in which those family promotions were made. Keeping our eye then upon France, we see in 1814 the exiled and denounced Bourbons restored to their throne-Russian cossacks bivouac in the Champs Elysées, and English soldiers mount guard at the Tuileries-Buonaparte is banished to Elba-his family are dethroned and degraded-from Elba he escapes, returns to Paris, is again in the ascendant; reigns for his Hundred Days, and then, by a series of victories, crowned and consummated by that of Waterloo, is beaten down never to rise again: unable to escape, he makes a merit of surrendering to England, and for the sake of peace in Europe, is sent to St. Helena, where he dies. On his departure, the Bourbons again succeed; Louis XVIII. dies at a good old age in his palace; and is succeeded by Charles X. The son of the Duc de Berri, murdered before his infant's birth, is heir presumptive to the throne-a new revolution breaks outCharles X. abdicates-his ministers are tried and imprisoned for lifethe throne is occupied by his nephew, as Citizen King of the French-the son of Buonaparte dies-the widow of the Duc de Berri is imprisoned -marries a second husband-has another child,-and France, altogether in the strictest alliance with England, her oldest and most inveterate enemy, is only kept from a new revolution, by the unflinching severity Oct.-VOL. XLII. NO. CLXVI. N of the "liberal" King, who was forced upon the throne by the last one. All these events have occurred during this century. In Portugal, after the measures of the French had driven the Prince Regent and his family to the Brazils, the English rescued that country from French tyranny. In 1821, the King (as he had then become by the death of his father) returned to his throne; in 1820, his eldest son, Don Pedro, having formally dissolved the union between Brazil and Portugal, caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor of Brazil; Don John VI. died in 1826, when Don Pedro claimed the crown of Portugal for his daughter, Donna Maria; Don Miguel, second son of Don John, claimed the throne as the law of the land and the decree of Lamego warranted. In the meantime, a revolution occurred in Brazil, and the Emperor took to flight-his son, a child, is now the Emperor. The struggle between the brothers is too familiar to need a word of remark; the claim of Don Pedro for his daughter is at present successful, and Donna Maria, a child, occupies the Portuguese throne. Spain, on the renewal of the war in 1803, was compelled by France to take active measures against England; in 1804, she declared war against us; in 1805, Nelson, with his heart's-blood, bought us the glorious victory of Trafalgar, in which the Spanish fleet, combined with that of France, was destroyed; in 1808, Buonaparte threw off the mask as to Spanish affairs; Charles IV. abdicated, and Ferdinand VII. was proclaimed. At this period, Charles IV. having been induced to declare his abdication, a compulsory act, was also induced to throw himself for safety upon Buonaparte's kindness. Then it was that Buonaparte invited Ferdinand to come and meet him on his road to Madrid-the King was deceived and went-he arrived at Vittoria, where he was surrounded by French troops, and where he received a letter from Buonaparte, addressed to him, not as King, but as Prince of Asturias, assuring him that he, Buonaparte, not only as his friend, but as the general protector and benefactor of Europe, was visiting Spain merely with a view to make such reforms as might be most agreeable to the popular feeling, and best tend to the pacification of the country. Upon the receipt of this friendly communication, Ferdinand continued his journey to Bayonne, where he dined with his illustrious friend and patron; and, after dinner, heard from his Imperial host that he thought it good to fill the throne of Spain by placing one of his own brothers on it. Ferdinand found himself, in fact, a prisoner, and was shortly after compelled to renounce his crown at the desire of his father, expressed in the presence of Buonaparte himself, to whom that father had the day before sold his kingdom and his birth-right for a stipulated sum. This compulsory step caused the patriotic revolution in Spain. Joseph Buonaparte arrived at Madrid to assume the regal power; but the inherent force of the nation was irresistible, and he was driven from his precarious dignity. Then came the Peninsular war, with all its glories, and its expenditure of blood and treasure. In 1814, Ferdinand returned to his country. He married four times; and by his last wife had one daughter, which daughter he proclaimed heir to the throne, to the exclusion of his brother, Don Carlos. This declaration he subsequently annulled, but, eventually, finally confirmed. Don Carlos, at his brother's death, asserted his claim to the sovereignty, with, as it is said, the sup port and concurrence of a great majority of the people. Foreign interference has hitherto thwarted the views of Don Carlos, whose consort, harassed by misfortunes, privations, and anxieties, has fallen a victim to persecution, and died in the parsonage-house of a village near Gosport. The success of the widow of Don Ferdinand has enabled her to proclaim her daughter as Queen of Spain, she herself assuming the title and character of Regent. By this revolution, for such it is, the Spanish throne is occupied by a child. Belgium and Holland have been separated; Antwerp has been besieged by the French; the Prince of Saxe Coburg, widower of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, has been made King of the Belgians, and married a daughter of the occupier of the French throne. The affairs of Greece, which have been so long unsettled, are as unsettled still, with this difference, that England has furnished her with a king, in the person of Prince Otho of Bavaria, whose revenue is derived from this country, but whose period of domination is fortunately not to be calculated upon with any degree of certainty. In Russia, after the murder of Paul, Alexander succeeded, and did not die without some suspicion of foul play. He was succeeded by his brother, Nicholas the First, whose elder brother, Constantine, with a most remarkable diffidence, or indifference to imperial sway, declined the throne in his favour. It must be evident that, if the extent or pretensions of this paper would admit of our taking a review of the public affairs of all the nations in the world during the period to which it refers, it would exhibit a series of mutations calculated equally to justify our opinion of the eventfulness of the last thirty-four years with those we have hastily touched. Our chief object is, however, to look to results as relating to England herself. In England, the circumstances connected with the succession have been complicated and extraordinary. In 1820, George the Third died, having survived his fifth son, the Duke of Kent, six days. The Princess Charlotte died, with her infant, in 1817; Queen Charlotte in 1818; the Duchess of York in 1820; in 1821, Queen Caroline; in 1827, the lamented Duke of York; in 1828, the Queen of Wirtemberg, Princess Royal of England; and in 1830, his late most Excellent Majesty. The present King has no surviving issue; and the crown devolves hereafter upon the daughter of his late Majesty's fifth son—a child. In 1814, the electorate of Hanover was erected into a kingdom, the crown of which belongs to the King of England, but is separated from it whenever a queen governs this empire; consequently, upon the accession of the Princess Victoria to the British throne, the Duke of Cumberland, as next heir to the crown, becomes King of Hanover-the Salic law, in that kingdom, excluding females. There are peculiarities of circumstance in this mortality of the royal family (which it would neither be right, nor, indeed, have we space to enter into them, even if it were) which render the course and order of these events very remarkable. Not less so have been the casualties by which the Ministers of the Crown and many eminent men have been removed from their stations during the period to which these observations refer. After the death of Pitt, avowedly accelerated, if not actually caused, by his devotion to his country, how soon died his great opponent, Fox? Lord Grenville is dead: Perceval was murdered; Lord Liverpool stricken by a calamity which left his body living after the mind was dead; Windham and Huskisson, both victims of accidents; Canning prematurely lost; and Lord Londonderry fallen by his own hand; Nelson, and Moore, and Abercrombie in battle; with a host of heroes equally deserving the tears and praises of their countrymen.* Remember that such men as Thurlow, Erskine, Gifford, Law, Kenyon, Grattan, Curran, have lived and died within this century. In literature, and wit, and poetry, can we forget Sheridan, Murphy, Cumberland, Cowper, Byron, and SCOTT! in science, Banks and Davy; in art, West and Lawrence; or the stage, Siddons and Kemble. All these are gone, -faded from the scenes which they exalted and adorned. We mention but the very leaders, but, taking every branch of art and science. into calculation, the aggregate amount of loss within the last thirty-four years will, hereafter, when time and reflection shall have overcome jealousy and envy, be found vastly to exceed that which this country ever sustained during any other period of equal duration.† But now let us look at things less questionable. In the present century, the bright career of the Duke of Wellington may be said to have been run; for although his services before and up to the capture of Seringapatam, in 1799, had raised his character and spread his fame, it was in this century that his celebrated battle of Assaye was fought. From his arrival in Europe, until the year 1815, he gained that series of victories which have immortalised him. But that is not all that we have to illustrate our point; besides the glorious days of Oporto, Vimiera, Talavera, Buzaco, Salamanca, Badajos, Vittoria, Nive, Toulouse, St. Jean de Luz, the Pyrenees, and WATERLOO, we are prepared to show that more general actions were fought, and more lives lost by the fortune of war from 1800 to 1815 than ever were fought in a period of ten times the same extent;-amongst them, Marengo, Alexandria, Austerlitz, Corunna, Aspen and Essling, Wagram, Barossa, Albuera, Borodino, Lutzen, Toplitz, Leipzic, Orthes, Ligny, besides others, amounting to nearly two hundred general actions. It has been only because Nelson at Trafalgar established the sovereignty of England on the seas that we have not to record equal triumphs of our navy to those which have graced our army. But, then, let us see what has taken place in civil life. England has been united with Ireland; the Test and Corporation Acts have been repealed; *In the melancholy record of suicides may be inserted the names of Romilly, Whitbread, and Calcraft. Where there is not space to give the entire list of those eminent in each line, it might appear invidious to name any except the acknowledged "heads” of professions; but in the two instances of art and the drama, we think no thirty-four years in the annals of the nation possessed and lost so many, and such distinguished men in the former, as Opie, Owen, Copley, Romney, Jackson, Harlowe, Northcote, Hamilton, Cosway, Wheatley, Smirke, Stothard, Hoppner, and others, no doubt, which at the moment do not occur; or in the latter, such a combination of talent as was to be found in the genius and powers of Elliston, Munden, Johnstone, Cooke, Emery, Suett, Palmer, Lewis, Holman, Quick, Knight, King, Moody, Wroughton, Kean, Mrs. Mattocks, Miss Pope, Mrs. Billington, Madame Storace, Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Bland, Mrs. Davenport (alive, but retired), and Bannister, similarly situated. This, we say, is but an imperfect catalogue, but it is sufficiently extensive to illustrate our principle. |