enacted or rejected by clamour, violence, and Bedition. On one of these occasions, Drusus, being warmly engaged in promoting the law for enlarging the freedom of the city, was stabbed by an unknown person, whio left his poniard in the wound: Drusus had just strength enough to avow, with his dying breath, the integrity of his intentions; and that there was no man in the commonwealth more sincerely attached to its in

terests.

A.C.

00.

U. C.

"The Italians being thus frustrated in their attempt to gain the freedom of Rome, by the death of their champion, resolved upon obtaining by force, what the senate seemed to refuse them as a favour. This gave rise to the Social war, in which most of the states of Italy entered into a confederacy against 658. Rome, in order to obtain a redress of their manifold grievances. Messengers and hostages were privately sent and interchanged among them; and upon having their claims rejected by the senate, they soon broke out into open rebellion. The state now saw a hundred thousand of its soldiers turned against itself, led on by approved commanders, and disciplined in the Roman manner. To oppose these, an equal number of men was raised by the senate, and the conduct of the war committed to the consuls; with whom were united Marius, Sylla, and the most experienced generals of the time. The war commenced with great animosity on either side, but the Romans seemed to have the disadvantage at first, Rutilius, the consul, fell into an ambuscade, and was stain. Upon this defeat, the army which he conducted was given to Marius, who rather might be said, not to forfeit his ancient fame, than to acquire new reputation by his conduct.

In

"After a lapse of two years, the Social war having continued to rage with doubtful success, the senate began to reflect, that, whether conquered or conquerors, the Roman power would equally be annihilated. order therefore to soften their compliance by degrees, they granted the freedom of the city to such of the Italian states as had not revolted; and then offered it to such as would soonest lay down their arms. This unex peeted generosity had the desired effect; the allies, with mutual distrust, offered to treat Separately: the senate took them one by one into favour, but gave the freedom of the city in such a manner, that, not being impowered to vote until all the other tribes had given their suffrages, they acquired very little weight in the constitution."

The conduct of Titus, in Syria, is not censured with sufficient asperity: it was extremely cruel, and often base. The destruction of Jerusalem is thus narrated.

"Vespasian continued some months at Alexandria, in Egypt, where, it is said, he

performed miracles in curing a blind and lame man, by touching them. Before he set out for Rome, he gave his son Titus the command of the army that was to lay siege to Jerusalem. As he approached the metropolis, he was met, at the distance of many miles, by the senate, and half the inhabi tants; who gave the sincerest testimonies of their joy, in having an emperor of such great and experienced virtues. Nor did he, in the least, disappoint their expectations; being equally prompt to reward merit, and to pardon his adversaries; to reform the manners of the citizens, and set them the best example in his own,

"While his father was thus receiving the homage of his subjects, Titus carried on the war against the Jews, with vigour. This obstinate and infatuated people had long re solved to resist the Roman power, vainly hoping to find protection from heaven, whom their impieties had utterly offended. Their own historian represents them, as arrived at the highest pitch of iniquity; while famines, earthquakes, and prodigies, all con spired to forebode their approaching ruin, and to fulfil the predictions of our Saviour and the prophets. Nor was it sufficient that heaven and earth seemed combined against them: they had the most bitter dissentions among themselves; and were split into two parties, who robbed and destroyed each other without mercy, while both of them, at the same time, boasted of their zeal for the religion of their ancestors.

At the head of one of those parties was an incendiary, whose name was John. This fanatic affected sovereign power, and filled the whole city of Jerusalem, and all the towns around, with tumult and pillage. In a short time, a new faction arose, headed by one Simon, who gathering together multitudes of robbers and murderers, who had fled to the mountains, attacked many cities and towns, and reduced all Idumea under his power. Jerusalem, at length, became the theatre in which these two demagogues began to exercise their mutual animosity; John was possessed of the temple, while Sinon was admitted into the city; both equally enraged against each other; while slaughter and devastation followed their pre

tensions.

Jerusalem was in this miserable situation, when Titus came to sit down before it with his conquering army, and began his operations within about six furlongs of the place. It was at the feast of the passover, when the place was filled with an infinite multitude of people, who had come from all parts to celebrate that great solemnity, that Titus undertook the siege. His presence produced a temporary reconciliation between the contending factions within; so that they unanimously resolved to oppose the common enemy first, and then decide their domestic quarrels. Their first sally, which was made

with much fury and resolution, put the Romans into great disorder, and obliged them to abandon their camp, and fly to the mountains. However, rallying immediately after, the Jews were forced back into the city; while Titus, in person, shewed surprising feats of valour and conduct.

"Jerusalem was strongly fortified by three walls on every side, except where it was fenced by deep valleys. Titus began by battering down the outward wall, which, after much fatigue and danger, he effected; all the time shewing the greatest clemency to the Jews, and offering them repeated assurances of pardon, on submission. But this infatuated nation refused his proffered kindness with conterapt, and imputed his humanity to his fears. Five days after the commencement of the siege, Titus broke through the second wall, and soon after made preparations for battering the third wall, which was their last defence. But first, he sent Josephus, their countryman, into the city, to exhort them to yield; who, using all his eloquence to persuade them, was only reviled with scoffs and reproaches. The siege was, therefore, carried on with greater vigour than before; and several batteries for engines were raised, which were no sooner built, than destroyed by the Jews. At length, it was resolved in council, to surround the whole city with a trench, and thus prevent all relief and succours from abroad. This, which was quickly executed, had no effect to intimidate the citizens. Though famine and pestilence, its necessary attendants, began now to make the most horrid ravages within the walls, yet this desperate people still resolved to hold out. Though obliged to live upon the most scanty and unwholesome food; though a bushel of corn was sold for six hundred crowns, and the holes and sewers were ransacked for carcases, that had long since grown putrid, yet they were not to be moved. The famine raged at last to such an excess, that a woman of distinction in the city, boiled her own child, and eat it. When this horrid account came to the ears of Titus, he declared, that he would bury so abominable a crime in the rains of their state. In consequence of this solution, he cut down all the woods within a considerable distance of the city, and causing more batteries to be raised, at length fattered down the wall, and in five days enfered the citadel by force. Thus reduced to the very verge of ruin, the remaining Jews still deceived themselves with absurd and delusive expectations, while many false prophets imposed upon the multitude, declaring they should soon have assistance from God. The heat of the battle was now, therefore, gathered round the inner wall of the temple, while the defendants desperately combated from the top. Titus was anxious to save this beautiful structure, but a soldier casting 4 brand into some adjacent buildings, the

fire communicated to the temple; and, notwithstanding the utmost endeavours on both sides, the whole edifice was quickly consumed. The sight of the temple in ruins, effectually damped the ardour of the Jews. They began to perceive, that heaven had forsaken them; while their cries and lamentations re-echoed from the adjacent mountains. The more resolute, however, still endeavoured to defend the upper and stronger part of the city, named Sion: but Titus, with his battering engines, soon made himself entire master of the place. John and Simon were taken from the vaults, where they had concealed themselves: the former was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and the latter reserved to grace the conqueror's triumph. The greatest part of the populace were put to the sword, and the city was entirely rased by the plough; so that, according to our Saviour's prophecy, not one stone remained upon another. Thus, after a siege of six months, Jerusalem was totally destroyed; having flourished, under the peculiar direc tion of heaven, above two thousand years. The numbers who perished in the siege, according to Josephus, amounted to above a million of souls, and the captives to almost a hundred thousand. The temporal state of the Jews ended with their city; while the wretched survivors were banished, sold, and dispersed into all parts of the world, where they have ever since remained, in their posterity, a monument of the divine wrath, and an evidence of the truth of revelation.

"All ranks were zealous in bestowing due honours on Titus, many of which he modestly declined; but his return, in trịumph, which he did with his father, was marked with all the magnificence and joy that was in the power of men to express. Every thing estecined valuable, or beautiful, was collected to adorn this great solemnity. Among the rich spoils, were exposed vast quantities of gold, taken out of the temple, but the book of the holy law was not the least remarkable in this grand exhibition. This was the first time that ever Rome saw the father and the son triumph together. A triumphal arch was erected upon this occasion, on which were described all the victories of Titus over the Jews, which remains almost entire to this day. Vespasian likewise built a temple to peace, wherein were deposited most of the Jewish spoils; and having now calmed all commotions in every part of the empire, he shut up the temple of Janus."

This history is continued to the fall of the eastern empire: it is succeeded by a separate dissertation on the rise and fall of Carthage, which deserves to be illustrated by the British antiquary with more care than has hitherto been be stowed on its very imperfect history.

Let us translate a few chapters. "I. THE PEOPLE.-The strayings of the people are excused by their ignorance. The people is willingly led: they do as readily the ill as the good commanded them: they obey, they disobey without examination. Their blunders are the lessons of sovereigns, who would be wrong to think the people made for

them.

The people have a lust for change: this desire it is for governments to direct, and to prevent its becoming the pandar of disorder.

III. SOVEREIGNS.-It is not surprizing that the spirit of innovation should have misdefined a king: for thirty years it has been the fashion among sovereigns to disguise themselves as subjects. A long peace led them to live without precautions for the future: they perceived it in the moment of danger.

Undoubtedly the error of the philosophists about kings is remarkable; but that of kings about philosophists is still more so. It is monstrous, and the mother of monsters, of all those evils which have afflicted the earth.

Kings ceased to be kings, as soon as they ceased to be awful. They thought that so much wealth, and so many luxuries were given them to be enjoyed, not to be hid behind. But in fact the ma

jesty of thrones has no other object, than to conceal from the eyes of the multitude those exceptionable personalities, which are so often the birthright of kings. Never was the veil more necessary, than at the end of the eighteenth century.

This was the grand secret of kings. Their task was to act a part on an immense theatre. They disdained the trappings of the stage, and wanted to appear what they really were. Men soon saw in kings nothing but bad actors.

Under kings as they used to be, revolutions were impossible: under kings as they are, revolutions are natural events.

Sovereigns, monarchs, or despots, if you will to be just, suppress in all your anti-revolutionary precautions whatever has the semblance of terror and excessive rigour."

This chapter on sovereigns contains an indirect panegyric of Bonaparte, and ascribes to prudence and calculation, that behaviour to which his qualities naturally guide him. Bonaparte is not much the gentleman; he is therefore not at ease in the company of gentlemen, as

among them he experiences a conscious inferiority. In circles where manners make the man, he is not the natural pri mate. Military society is indeed very unfavourable to polish of manners: in a well-organized army, officers are frequently taken from the ranks, and even where they are not, it is the idle, the ig norant, the dissipated son, who is selected for the army; so that the chance is much against meeting there, with men of edu cation. The intercourse of the military with the softer sex, is a good deal limited to the low-born and unchaste; having the reputation of men of intrigue, the wife, the mother, keeps them aloof; hence, their manners towards ladies are apt to retain too much of that protrusive familiarity, which is natural toward an inferior, who is the object of desire, but which is the very reverse of chivalrous worship. Moral courage is much con nected with animal or personal courage, it abounds therefore in the army: but this quality of mind, although a cause of frankness and sincerity, is also a cause of impudence and insolence; in so much that the violent remedy of duelling (almost every recurrence to which results from the breach of good manners) has always been found prevalent in armies, and is necessary there, to keep reciprocal conduct within the bounds of decorum. Habits of peremptory command, again are unfavourable to the artifices of urba nity, which studies to confer, as if it asked a boon; and which disguises a command in the humble garb of a petition. This somewhat barbaric character of his profession, Bonaparte carries to the extreme, he is naturally heedless and despotic as the thunderbolt, his graciousness is stage-trick, his affability all performance. Presentations at his levee are rehearsed, and he arrives lessoned what attentions to vouchsafe. His aversion, like his good will, is got by heart; and his very indignation is the voice of his country. His condescension is duty, never inclination; merit with him is measured by celebrity: his agents will apologize when he neglects those of whom he ought to have heard; but he never anticipates the verdict of the pub lic. He values qualities, like Machiavel, by their power, not their utility; he can be hostile to a woman, and benevolent to a terrorist. Hence his flatterers chocse to place the perfection of king-craft, in representative majesty; in expressing the

of action.

XVI. IGNORANCE ALONE WOULD REESTABLISH A FALLEN GOVERNMENT ON ITS OLD FOUNDATION." Who would not laugh at the architect, who, besides the rotunda at Rome should reconstruct on the old plan a gothic church, such as the barbarians had built there. It would be taken for a foil intended to disgust by contradiction.

And shall we, in the presence of acknowledged principles, of political economy, propose to a nation the rigorous task of exemplifying such a government as ought not to be imitated?

This advice is the acme of ignorance and dishonesty: were it to prevail, it would be the triumph of a few individuals over common sense and general interest."

XXII. CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. "The revolution of France had only two direct causes the one positive, the other negative.

The first was the super fluity of merit, science, and talent in the middle class; the second, the ignorance and false philosophy of government.

Had either been wanting, neither would have operated; the absence of the first would have left the second without danger; talent in the government to ditect its force, would have disappointed all the efforts of the middle class.

There is some novelty and some truth in the remark, that when education becomes very common, so that the number of speculative persons at leisure, to interfere about the affairs of government, is considerable-this renders a provision for their formal interference, an elective constitution, necessary. Democracy, therefore, is the natural result of progressive instruction, and civilization; and what remains to be considered, in countries that are still to constitute, is, by what forms of gradual rotation, or by what infusions of hereditary authority, the versatility and instability of democratic legislation and favouritism, may best be precluded. The proper government of barbarians, is military despoism; courage and force is necessary to

compel the obedience of the rude. The proper government of civilized men, is voluntary selection; wisdom and confidence should suffice, to obtain the obedience of the instructed."

From the twenty fourth chapter one learns that the civil constitution of the clergy, enacted by the constituting as Sembly of France, was the work of the Jansenists. The French Jansenists, therefore, answerto our evangelical christians, who are also for a modified and cheap establishment.

In the twenty fifth chapter this writer describes, under the name of the Illuminated and the Martinists, a regular sect of Swedenborgians, who had announced, he says, the discovery of the true church of christ in the centre of Africa, and who had composed sixty volumes of commentary on the Apocalypse, which promise to elect the gratifications of sensual love, as a part of the felicity of heaven. The writer adds, no doubt erroneously, that this sect was distinguished for licentious morals, a charge as common, as it is commonly false against new religions. He says that Depremenil was one of its members.

The thirty-second chapter on States General, contains, among much common place, one really important and valuable observation: that the States General would have done well, with their views, to provide against their own dissolution; nor by voting themselves a permanent body, like the long parlia ment, but by enacting the progressive renewal of the whole deputation, by the half-yearly dismissal or extinction of a sixth, eighth, or tenth part. In this case the glory of giving its constitution to France, would very quietly have been left to the original and only extant body of representatives, who might have gone on altering as often as the opinion of the majority shifted. But by dissolving themselves, and bequeathing to their successors an apparently inferior, and merely administrative task, they excited envy, and occasioned a vain competition for the glory of giving its constitution to France in all the successive legislatures. The legislative bady decreed its convention. The convention made three different constitutions, accordingly as the different parties got the ascendancy. At length the usual remedy for anarchy, military despotism was recurred to, and the most