taxed and untaxed-the devoured and devourers. Mr. Alison acknowledges, "there was a difference in the circumstances of the two countries at the period when their respective revolutions arose, but not so much as to make the contest in the one the foundation of a new distribution of property, and a different balance of power in the other the chief means of maintaining the subsisting interests of society, the existing equilibrium of the world." There was just this difference: The contest in England was for order and the supremacy of right and law, in France it was for bread. Stern, unbending principle guided the one, starvation and desperation the other. The inevitable result must be the establishment of justice in the one case, and the overthrow of everything established in the other. Rousseau never uttered a truer sentiment than in saying, "when the poor having nothing to eat they will eat the rich" or Carlyle, writing, "when the thoughts of a people in the great mass of it, have grown mad, the combined issue of that peoples' workings will be madness-an incoherency and ruin." It must be so. With the first consciousness of power they cry out as they run over the long catalogue of their sufferings, "plunder shall be paid with plunder, violence with violence, and blood with blood."

The same influence of his hatred of democracy, blinding his judgment and compelling him to misstate facts, is seen in the proximate causes he gives as lead ing to the Revolution. It would be too gross a misstatement to declare that there was not sufficient suffering in France to produce an insurrection, as the Duke of Wellington once said there was no suffering in England. He acknowledges it, but thinks it has been overrated. Still, the picture he draws of the misery of the lower classes is frightful. The taille and vingtieme imposts fell heavily on the farmer, so that out of the produce of his land he received only about one quarter, the other three quarters being divided between the proprietor and the king. This alone would reduce the population of any country to starvation and consequent madness. Accustomed to yield to arbitrary power, the people never dreamed of resistance till driven to it by despair. Men dare ask for bread anywhere. The bayonet and scaffold can be contemplated with more calmness than famine.

Out of this state of feeling grew the

Revolution and all its horrors. Mr. Alison admits there was sufficient suffering and oppression to create an outbreak-indeed, he goes as far as to make the lower classes 76 per cent. poorer than the laborer in England, which is a degree of poverty beyond our conception-yet he affirms that the Revolution was started by the upper classes, and could have been checked by them at any moment; nay, he puts the blame of setting it in motion on such dreamers as Voltaire and Rousseau, who uttered fine sentiments about liberty, equality, etc. In making a statement so opposed to facts, he doubtless has in his mind such men as Carlyle, Thomas Hood, and others, whose writings are telling with such wonderful effect upon the English people. It needs but a glance to see where the grand difficulty lay. The leaders of the mobs knew it well, and wrote epigramatically, "tout va bien ici, le pain manque," all goes well

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there is a lack of bread. The first attack of the populace was on one who said a man could live on seven sous a day. Then followed attacks on taxgatherers and bakers. The first man hung at the lamp-post, Foulon, was hung for replying to the people's cry of distress, let them eat grass." Watch the army of women swarming around Versailles, crying, "bread! bread!" See them gathered around their watch-fire at midnight, devouring the remains of a horse. Hear them screaming back to the na tional assembly, whither they had forced themselves, "du pain pas tant de long discours"-bread, and not long speeches. There lies the cause of the disease, and not all the aristocracy of France could have prevented the outbreak. Yield they must, but submission came too late. They themselves had backed the waters till, when the barriers gave way, the flood must sweep every thing under. But to acknowledge this was to admit the danger that now threatens England, and sanction the Chartists in their ceaseless petitions to the throne and parliament for reform.

Carrying out his monarchical sympa thies, Mr. Alison also charges on Democ racy the blood and devastation that followed in the wake of the Revolution. He gives us a synopsis of the declaration of the "RIGHTS OF MAN," by the Assembly, in which he says, "it declares the original equality of mankind; that the ends of the social union are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression; that sovereignty resides in the nation,

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and every power emanates from them; that freedom consists in doing every thing which does not injure another; that law is the expression of the general will; that public burdens should be borne by all the members of the state in proportion to their fortunes; that the elective franchise should be extended to all; and that the exercise of natural rights has no other limits but their interference with the rights of others." "In these positions, considered abstractly," says Mr. Alison, there is much in which every reasonable man must acquiesce." We say, on the contrary, that every "reasonable man must acquiesce" in the whole, "abstractly." There are no plainer principles in human logic. They are axioms, considered "abstractly," no man can doubt, while we believe they are not only "abstractly" but practically true. They rest at the very foundation of our government, and if they be not true our government is a lie. The want of means in carrying them out does not prove their falsity, but the power of man to turn his greatest blessings into evils. Yet, reasonable as he admits some of them to be, considered "abstractly," he calls them, in another place, a digest of anarchy." Then the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States, isa digest of anarchy," an assertion which the history of our country for the last fifty years, fully contradicts. Το this "digest of anarchy," this explosion of democracy, he attributes all the horrors of the revolution. He devotes whole pages to very grave and very sad reflections upon it, and at the end of almost every chapter on this period, he pours forth his note of woe" on the acts of republicanism. Now, no one doubts the danger of suddenly giving too much power and freedom to slaves. The eye long accustomed to darkness, cannot bear immediately the full splendor of noonday. The oppression of centuries, when suddenly broken, does not end in calm and intelligent action. We do not find fault with Mr. Alison for preaching this doctrine, but for preaching this alone. There are three other great truths to be considered in connection with this, before we can form a correct judgment upon it. In the first place, if democracy did start this long array of ills, is that its natural action, or is it the re-action of something else? Was it not human nature, long chained, and scourged, and trampled on, suddenly taking vengeance on its oppres

sors, and wiping out with one bloody stroke the long arrears of guilt? Were the horrors of the Revolution the result of democracy merely or of vengeance? Is it to be wondered at, that the captive, so long bound and goaded to madness, should fling abroad his arms a little too wildly at the first recovery of his freedom, and shake the bars of his cage a little too roughly? We believe the great truth, after all, to be drawn from that bloody tragedy, is the evils of long oppression, and not the evils of giving man his rights. The primal ultimate cause is the one that should have engaged Mr. Alison's attention and reflections, and not the secondary proximate cause. The youth of the world should learn a different lesson than that taught by his history.

In the second place, granting that the crimes and violence of the revolution did naturally and entirely grow out of republicanism, we believe they did not begin to compare with the misery and suffering caused by the tyranny that preceded it. One million is supposed to have perished during the Reign of Terror. Frightful as this waste of life and happiness is, we do not believe it is the half of that produced by the reign of despotism. The guillotine loaded with human victims-whole crowds of men, women and children shot down in the public streets, and the murders and massacres on every side, that made France reek in her own blood, make the world stand aghast-for the spectacle is open and public. We have seen every one of that million cut down by the sword of violence, but the thrice one million that have perished, one by one, during the antecedent ages, under the grinding hand of oppression, and slow torture of famine, and all the horrors of a starved people, dying silently and in every hovel of the land, we know nothing of. Generation after generation melted away, whose cries of distress no ear heard but that of Him who in the end avenges the helpless. Let Mr. Alison utter his lamentations over these millions who died none the less painfully because they perished silently, as well as over the victims of the revolution.

But in the third place, we deny the former supposition to be true, believing that the great danger of giving the ignorant masses sudden freedom, arises from two causes. The first is the strong sense of retributive justice in the human bosom. Assuming the doctrine, "an eye for an

eye and a tooth for a tooth," to be just, they will at once turn round and spoil their spoilers. The desperation of famine guided by this feeling, shed the first blood in Paris. The second and continuing cause arises from tyranny itself. The love of power may be as dominant in the heart of a peasant as of a prince. There are multitudes that want only the opportunity, to become despots. They are not all tyrants who by nature are fitted to be. All they need to make them enact the same follies and crimes the titled and legalized tyrants are committing before them, is the means of doing it. These men flourish in revolution. If possessed with energy and skill, they will lead the blind and ignorant masses where they please. Appealing to their prejudices and passions, and fears of renewed oppression, they excite them to renewed massacres and bloodshed. This was the case in Paris, and the horrors enacted during the Reign of Terror were not so much the work of democrats as aristocrats. We are to look for the causes of actions, not in men, but the principles that guide them. Who looks upon Robespiere, Danton, Marat, Couthon and Barrere, as Republicans. They were such men as the despots of the world are made of. Seeking the same ends with those who had crushed France so long-viz: power at whatever cost they made use of the passions of the mob to elevate themselves. By inciting their revenge and fears, and feeding their baser desires, they both ruled and trampled on them. It was ambition and tyranny that drenched France in bloodthe same that had reduced it to starvation, only by different means. In the one case they were manifested through the steady action of an oppressive government, in the other through the passions of a mob. The love of equality and the love of power are two very different things. Tyranny is no less tyranny because it puts on the cap of liberty, and despotism is just the same, whether it seeks its ends through authority or violence.

This inability on the part of Mr Alison to see any virtue in republicanism forces him into statements that are calculated to mislead his readers in that most important truth now before the world-the progress and tendency of the democratic spirit among men. Wrong may be done to individuals in belying their motives, and injustice to military leaders by depriving them of their just reward of praise, but

these are small errors compared to the wrong of charging on Liberty crimes she never committed, and loading her with epithets she never deserved. It is for this reason our remarks seem to be aimed at one point. This is the great error of Mr. Alison's work, and there could be no greater. He incurs a heavier responsibility who teaches us wrong on the great doctrine of human freedom, than he who errs on all other points beside. Were this sympathy of his for monarchical institutions kept within ordinary bounds, we should say nothing; but he travels out of his way to strike republicanism, and whenever the plain facts he relates might be construed contrary to his wishes, he obtrudes on us a long list of reflections, often, it is true, very stupid, but sometimes exceedingly plausible. This tendency of his is a matter of feeling, rather than judgment, and hence leads him into endless blunders and contradictions.

After devoting one chapter to the disastrous campaign of 1793, the first under the republic, he closes with six reflections, among which (No. 2) is the following: "These considerations are calculated to dispel the popular illusions as to the capability of an enthusiastic population alone to withstand the attacks of a powerful regular army." And what is the ground of this sage conclusion? Why this campaign, planned and appointed while France was heaving like the breast of a volcano to the fires that raged within her, badly conducted, and feebly prosecuted, had been disastrous to the French army. It is a hasty conclusion, not only groundless in this case, but false in every way. There can be no rule laid down in such matters; but as far as history can settle it, it proves directly the reverse. Look at the wars of the Tyrol and Switzerland, in which rude peasants, led on by such men as Tell and Winkelried, overthrew the best disciplined armies on the continent. Go over our own battle-fields, where valor and enthusiasm triumphed over troops that had stood the shock of the firmest battalions of Europe. But it is not with the principle we quarrel so much as the inference he wishes to have drawn from it. In the very next chapter devoted to an account of the Vendean war, he gives us a most thrilling description of the valor and enthusiasm of the peasants. Army after army sent to subdue them were utterly annihilated. The peasants of

Vendee, according to Mr. Alison, were rude and " illiterate, ignorant of military discipline," and of the most ordinary rules of war, yet they fought six hundred battles before they were subdued. Occupied on their farms, they continued their peaceful labors till it was announced, an army was on their borders. Then the tocsin sounded in every village, and the church bells rang out their alarum, and the peasants armed with pikes, pitchforks, muskets, and whatever they could place hands on, flocked from every quarter to the place of rendezvous. Thus armed and organized, they offered up their vows to the Supreme Being, and while the priests and women were assembled in prayer, fell with the might of a brave and enthusiastic people on their foes, and crushed them to pieces. Astonished at these victories, the French government gathered its best armies around this resolute province till 100,000 men hemmed it in, some of them composing the choicest troops of France. The tocsin again was sounded and the alarm bells rang, and the peasants assembled and the armies were routed. Without cannon, without discipline, they boldly advanced against the oldest battalions of France. On the open field they marched up in front of the artillery, and, as they saw the first flash, prostrated themselves on their faces, and when the storm of grape had passed by, rose and fell like an avalanche on their foes, charging the cannoniers at their own pieces, and trampling down the steady ranks like grass beneath their feet. Prodigies of valor were wrought, and acts of heroism exhibited in this war, to which the history of the world scarcely furnishes a parallel. The population, men, women and children, turned out en masse at the first alarm. Every hut sent forth a soldier, till an army of forty or fifty thousand men stood ready to march in any direction. Yet so undisciplined were they, that as soon as the enemy were routed and driven from their province, they disbanded to their homes till another army made its appearance.

Speaking of their bravery and success, Mr. Alison says, "thus was the invasion of six armies, amounting to 100,000 troops, part of whom were the best soldiers of France, defeated, and losses inflicted on the Republicans, incomparably greater than they had suffered from all the allies put together since the commencement of the war-a memorable instance of what can be effected by resolute

men, even without the advantages of regular organization, if ably conducted against the most formidable superiority of military force." And in speaking of the expedition of the Vendean army beyond the Loire, whither they had gone expecting to meet the English under Lord Moira, he says this army, before it fell— "without magazines or provisions, at the distance of forty leagues from its home, and surrounded by three hostile armies, marched one hundred and seventy leagues in sixty days, took twelve cities, gained seven battles, killed twenty thousand of the Republicans, and took from them one hundred pieces of cannon, trophies greater than were gained by the vast allied armies in Flanders during the whole campaign." This war of peasants with veteran troops, marked by such bravery and enthusiam on the one side, and such atroctities on the other, furnishes Mr. Alison with excellent materials for his accustomed quota of reflections; and what are they?" Such," he says, "were the astonishing results of the enthusiastic valor which the strong feelings of loyalty and religion produced in this gallant people; such the magnitude of the result, when, instead of cold calculation, vehement passion was brought into action." Place this philosophic and moral reflection beside the one we quoted, as made at the close of the first campaign of the Republic against the allied forces on the Rhine. These considerations are calculated to dispel the popular illusion, as to the capability of an enthusiastic population alone to withstand the attacks of a powerful regular army.” We hardly know which to admire most here, the awkward look of this Janusheaded philosophy, or the solemn assurance with which the contradictory faces look down on us. But what is the reason of this strange twist in his logic? Simply this: When speaking of the defeat of the Republicans in their contests with the allied forces, it was the enthusiasm of democrats against disciplined royalists; in the other case, the enthusiasm of royalists against disciplined democrats. A "popular illusion" becomes a grave fact with Mr. Alison, in the short space of one chapter, and the "enthusiasm and valor" of republicans and royalists has an entirely different effect on the serried ranks of a veteran army.

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But the flat contradiction he here gives himself, is of no great consequence, only as it illustrates our

first statement, that, he cannot be relied on in those cases, where monarchical and republican principles or men come in collision. The deductions of such a man are false and injurious, and the same spirit that can make them will purposely or involuntarily alter facts.

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But his sympathy with monarchy is not stranger than his sympathy with England; and we find, that no trust can be placed in him, whenever in his narrative his own government and country are contrasted with others. His account of the Irish Rebellion, during this period, and indeed his whole description of the affairs of that unhappy country, are shamefully false; and we must believe, in charity, that Mr. Alison never thoroughly studied the history of Ireland. He was too much occupied in tracing the marches and battles of those armies that shook Europe with their tread, to devote much time or space to the struggles of a few millions of Irishmen. We should be indignant with the heartlessness evinced in his opening paragraph on the history of Ireland, were it not for the ludicrous solemnity with which the words are uttered. In surveying the annals of this unhappy country, it appears impossible, at first sight, to explain the causes of its suffering, by any of the known principles of human nature. Severe and conciliatory policy seems to have been equally unavailing to heal its wounds-conquest has failed in producing submission, severity in enforcing tranquillity, indulgence in awaking gratitude." There spoke the self-complacent Englishman. With what a patronising air, and deploring tone, he refers to this "unhappy country," and how utterly unable to account for its ill-will. We cannot sympathise with Mr. Alison in his surprise, for, in all our knowledge of the history of nations, we have never read of such national perfidy and oppression and cruelty so long continued, as the whole history of the English and Irish connection presents. How England could have heaped more insults and wrong and misery on Ireland than she has, without exterminating her, we are unable to see. "The first British sovereign," says Mr. Alison, "who directed his attention to the improvement of Ireland, was James I. He justly boasted, that there would be found the true theatre of his glory, and that he had done more in a single reign for the improvement of that important part of the empire than all his pre

decessors from the days of Henry II." And what was the result of all this kindness on the part of James I., Instead of increased tranquillity and augmented gratitude, there broke out, shortly after, the dreadful rebellion of 1641, which was only extinguished in oceans of blood." Poor return this for the kindness of the indulgent monarch. But in what consisted the kindness of King James, that it so outshone all that had been done by his predecessors since Henry II., and which, instead of awakening gratitude, exasperated the Irish into rebellion? Elizabeth had commenced an extensive scheme of confiscating Irish estates, but as she approached her grave her injustice alarmed her fears, for she thought of that tribunal above all earthly tribunals, and immediately gave order to have the confiscation stopped, and some of the estates restored. The very first act of kind King James was to recommence this plan of confiscation. The Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel first fell beneath his hand. Under the pretext that they were engaged in a Catholic conspiracy, which was not only never proved, but never attempted to be proved, all the land of which they were chiefs, to the amount of 500,000 acres, fell to King James. Having accomplished this benevolent act, he undertook to establish an English colony there, but fearing the Irish Parliament would defeat his plans, he created forty boroughs at once in order to have a majority in the house. This was very kind of the king, but his kindness did not stop here. His next act was to appoint a commission "for the discovery of defective titles" in Irish estates. A band of "discoverers," who were rewarded according to their success, went through the country prying into the private affairs of the nobility, and wringing from them large sums as fees to pay for not being robbed. But witnesses had also to be suborned, bribes and tortures and violence used, till the annual expense of carrying out this kingly robbery amounted to £16,000, or nearly $80,000, more than the whole revenue of Ireland. The next kind act of this king of blessed memory, was to start a scheme to get the whole province of Connaught into his royal hands. The proprietors of the land becoming alarmed, offered to the covetous monarch £10,000 to let them alone; and while he was balancing between the money in hand and the whole province of Connaught in prospect, the “ King of kings" summoned