In answer to that claim of the Society, or its preacher, the right of forming a government for themfelves,' Mr. Burke, without engaging in the abstract queftion, fhows that no fuch right has ever been conftitutionally afferted: the claim to liberty has uniformly been that of inheritance. We have an inheritable crown, an inheritable peerage; and a house of commons, and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties from a long line of ancestors.'

The conftitution of France was in part loft, but it was not forgotten; it wanted repairs, and had never been completed; but parts of the outline were bold, able, and masterly. Mr. Burke expoftulates very juitly with his correfpondent, on their neglect of the remaining foundations in the re-erection of their edifice. Their wild inconfiderate, it cannot be called a building, for it wants proportion, folidity, and dignity; their loose, disjointed materials, in our author's opinion, render them ridiculous, and France has bought undifguifed calamities at a higher price than any nation has purchafed the most unequivocal bleffings. Their attempt was, he obferves, unprovoked, and they have found their punishment in their fuccefs.

Laws overturned, tribunals fubverted, industry without vigour, commerce expiring, the revenue unpaid, yet the people impoverished, a church pillaged, and a flare not relieved; civil and military anarchy made the contitution of the kingdom; every thing human and divine facrificed to the idol of public credit, and national bankruptcy the confequence; and to crown all, the paper fecurities of new, precarious, tottering power, the difcredited paper fecurities of impoverished faud and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the fupport of an empire, in lieu of the two great recognized fpecies that reprefent the laling conventional credit of mankind, which disappeared and hid themselves in the earth from whence they came, when the principle of proper y, whofe creatures and reprefentatives they are, was fyllematically fubverted.'

If this picture is coloured more gloomily than that which we had formerly occafion to draw of France, from the works of Frenchmen, it is because a few months have added to the evils, and the National Affembly have preferred difcuffions on the colour of the flags and uniforms to fecuring fubordination in the navy and army, to the prefervation of property, and the fecurity of life itfelf. If Mr. Burke's account be true, nothing better could be expected: the third eftate was, according to his reprefentation, difproportionally, and he adds, unconftitutionally, large, whilst its members, at least the majority, were fuch as would more probably increase the confusion than leffen it, because they had more to gain from anarchy

than

than from a due fubordination. The choice of deputies from the clergy was, it feems, equally exceptionable, and our author feelingly laments the want of fome decent regulated pre-eminence, fome deference to birth or rank. If it is contended that 24 millions ought to prevail over 200,000, he replies, true, if the conftitution of a kingdom be a problem of arithmetic, or if the queftion be argued with the affistance of the lamp-cord; but we think with him, that the nice fenfe of honour, the regard to decorum, the feeling attention due to an established character, fo peculiarly obfervable in men of birth and rank, peculiarly fit them for diftinguished stations in the regulations of government. It may be replied, that it is enough for a statefman to be honeft; but there is a lively fenfe of honour which goes beyond it, which is not content with acting right, but with peculiar delicacy and fenfibility, will not approach fo near the confines of wrong as to excite a momentary fufpicion. Mr. Burke is very fevere, and justly fevere, on that fpirit which pervades Dr. Price's fermon, the frequent fuggeftions that this moment is favourable to the caufe of liberty, and that the National Affembly may co-operate in this great work of our own renovation. In truth, they have acted too injudicioufly for themfelves, to be admitted to affift in the little reforms neceffary in this country. But Mr. Burke has not yet done with the fermon at the Old Jewry. He examines, with great accuracy, the boasted rights of man, and ridicules the triumphant peroration of the preacher. Dr. Price, he obferves, made no new dif covery: Hugh Peters conducted a triumph of a fimilar kind, and, like the preacher, wifhed to depart in peace. Hugh was difappointed, but Dr. Price will probably be more fortunate in his efcape.-We must now turn to the affairs of France.

The triumph which Dr. Price exaggerates and commends, Mr. Burke laments, and reprefents the affembly as animated with the warmest indignation against those turbulent madmen who could be guilty of it. The utmost that can be said in their favour is, that in their zeal for liberty, they have forgot to provide means for fuppreffing licentioufnefs.

What must they have felt at being obliged, as a felicitation on the prefent new year, to request their captive king to forget the stormy period of the laft, on account of the great good which be was likely to produce to his people; to the complete attainment of which good they adjourned the practical demonstrations of their loyalty, affuring him of their obedience, when he should no longer poffefs any authority to command?

This addrefs was made with much good nature and affection

to

to be fure. But, among the revolutions in France, must be reckoned a confiderable revolution in their ideas of politeness. In England we are faid to learn manners at fecond-hand from your fide of the water, and that we drefs our bebaviour in the Frippery of France. If fo, we are still in the old cut; and have not fo far contormed to the new Parifian mode of good-breeding, as to think it quite in the most refined ftrain of delicate compliment (whether in condolence or congratulation) to say to the moft humiliated creature that crawis upon the earth, that great public benefits are derived from the murder of his fervants, the attempted affaffination of himself and of his wife, and the mortification, difgrace, and degradation, that he has perfonally fuffered. It is a topic of confolation which our ordinary of Newgate would be too humane to use to a criminal at the foot of the gallows. I fhould have thought that the hangman of Paris, now that he is liberalized by the vote of the National Affembly, and is allowed his rank and arms in the herald's college of the rights of men, would be too generous, too gallant a man, too full of the enfe of his new dignity, to employ that cutting confolation to any of the perfons whom the leze nation might bring under the administration of his executive powers."

The events of the fixth of October, 1789, are indeed truly diftreffing. They want no heightening to render them tragic, at leaft in our author's defcription. Much of it is known, but Mr. Burke adds, that when the mob broke into the palace, the centinel had fcarcely time to call to the queen to fave herfelf, when he was killed; and fhe had just escaped when her bed was ftabbed with a hundred ftrokes. This differs from the common narratives; and we fhall tranfcribe a few paffages from the letter of M. de Lally Tollendal, the principal witnefs of those transactions: he is excufing his fe ceffion from the affembly. My health, I declare, renders me unable to do my duty; but independent of it, I had not ftrength to fupport any longer the horror of this bloody scene; thefe heads; the queen almost affaffinated; the king dragged away like a flave, entering Paris in the midst of his murderers, and preceded by the heads of the unfortunate guards; thefe perfidious janizaries; these murderers; these female cannibals; this cry for all the bishops to be hanged, on the moment while the king entered the capital, with two bishops of his council in the coach; a gun which I saw fired into one of the queen's coaches; and M. Bailly calling it a glorious day.' This is the triumph which Dr. Price alludes to with fo much fatisfaction, probably becaufe he was not acquainted with its horrors; for we cannot believe, with Mr. Burke, that he was fo much exhilarated with the profpect only of the execution of the bishops. Our author, with his ufual feeling

and

and gallantry, expatiates on the diftreffes both of the king and queen. The age of chivalry is over; that of ceconomists and calculators, he obferves, has fucceeded; and he expa tiates at length on the lofs of that generous loyalty to rank and fex, that proud fubmiffion, that dignified obedience, that fubordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itfelf, the fpirit of an exalted freedom. It is an obfervation of more confequence, that, with this generous spirit, we have grown to our prefent height, and no one can say how much of the prefent profperity may be owing to it.

The diftreffes of the king are more interefting, because he has borne his faculties fo meekly. If the prerogative had arifen to an improper height, that was the hydra to be crushed; the man ought to have been fpared. If the deficiency of the national income was too great to be fupplied by the ufual channels, thofe were to be called upon who had fattened on the spoils of the people, not the clergy, who had no fhare in the plunder. This measure is, with fome probability, imputed to that philofophical fpirit, as it is called, or rather to that fceptical tendency, fo prevalent on the continent. The clergy are fair game, because that profeffion, in their opinion, is ufelefs. This confideration leads our author to examine the general establishments in England; and this he does with more readiness, because, as he obferves, in France they know little of England, or what is done in it. The Conftitutional and Revolution Societies echo each other's fentiments, and what is not known or overlooked with contempt, our neighbours think is generally acknowledged, because it is not contradicted. But Mr. Burke's opinions on an established church, an established monarchy, ariftocracy and democracy, the evils which might ensue from the destruction of these establishments, or how far the interest of the nation is concerned in fupporting them on their proper level, are fufficiently known. On the fubject of ecclefiaftical establishments, our author is much too diffufe. His fentiments in general are juft; but when he applies them to the ecclefiaftics of France, no inconfiderable partiality to their cause is confpicuous: it is an argument, however, of fome confequence, that to fupply a deficit of two millions will not fupport a confiscation of five millions; and the conduct of the affembly is more confpicuous, when we find that only a certain portion is to be paid, and the lands of the clergy are to be held by this fine, by the creatures of the affembly, fecuring a kind of knights-fervice, to oppofe a future crufade. The government of France, though defpotic, was more tolerable, in Mr. Burke's opinion, than a democracy, and the government could not be very bad with an increafing population, and

external prosperity. This was the fituation of France when the general inftructions to the reprefentatives pointed only to an improvement, not to a destruction, and a regeneration of a form of government, verifying in a political view the prophecy of Horace :

Etas parentum, pejor avis tulit

Nos nequiores, mox daturos

Progeniem vitiofiorem

The different effects which have arifen from this new organization, so far as they regard commerce, internal profperity, and population, appear to be unfavourable. The committee of medicancy, the firft tax laid to maintain the poor, and the deficiency of fpecie, are not the leaft ftriking of thefe retrograde motions.

The nobility, at whom the National Affembly has aimed its pointed fhafts, and its childish, harmless fting, is reprefented by the author of the Reflections as a liberal, beneficent, well-informed and gallant race of men, who, even by their conduct in the firft fteps of the Revolution, deserved a better fate.

I have obferved, fays Mr. Burke, the affectation, which, for many years paft, has prevailed in Paris even to a degree perfectly childif, of idolifing the memory of your Henry the Fourth. If any thing could put one out of humour with that ornament to the kingly character, it would be this overdone style of infidious panegyric. The perfons who have worked this engine the most bufily, are those who have ended their panegyrics in dethroning his fuccefior and defcendant; a man as good-natured at the leaft as Henry the Fourth; altogether as fond of his people, and who has done infinitely more to correct the ancient vices of the state than that great monarch did, or we are fure he ever meant to do. Well it is for his panegyrifts that they have not him to deal with. For Henry of Navarre was a refolute, active, and politic prince. He poffeffed indeed great humanity and mildness; but an humanity and mildness that never stood in the way of his interefts. He never fought to be loved without putting himself first in a condition to be feared. He used foft language with determined conduct. He afferted and maintained his authority in the grofs, and distributed his acts of conceffion only in the detail. He spent the income of his prerogatives nobly; but he took care not to break in upon the capital; never abandoning for a moment any of the claims which he made under the fundamental laws, nor fparing to fhed the blood of thofe who oppofed him, often in the field, fometimes upon the fcaffold. Becaufe he knew how to make his virtues refpected by the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of thofe whom, if they had lived in his time, he would have fhut up in the Bafile, and brought to punishment along with the regicides whom he hanged after he had famifhed Paris into a furrender.

• If